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Boal (Galician-Asturian: Bual) is a municipality, a civil parish and a town in the Autonomous Community of the Principality of Asturias (Spain). It borders north with El Franco and Coaña, south with Illano, west with Castropol and east with Villayón.
The main way of access to the municipality is the regional road AS-12, which connects Navia with Grandas de Salime. The whole municipality has a population of 1,632 inhabitants, whereas there are about 496 inhabitants in the capital town.
Etymology
Etymologically, it is usually considered that "Boal" comes either from the Indo-european languages, *bod- (stream, ditch), or from the Latin, bove or *bovale (ox). Although some authors believe that "Boal" could be understood as the expression of an old anthroponym or person name, Bovali (iler) or Baudiliu (adducing the form Baudali), it is common to consider its original meaning either as "terreno frecuentado y apropiado para el pasto del ganado vacuno" ("land frequented and appropriate for the grazing of cattle") or as "corral de bueyes o dehesa boyal" ("corral for oxen or ox pasture"). In fact, Corominas mentions in Aragonese boalage, boalar, "dehesa boyal" ("ox pasture") as derivatives of boal, which would be at the same time a variant of boyal, "perteneciente al buey o al ganado vacuno" ("belonging to ox or to cattle") .
History
Ancient times
There still remain traces proving the existence of settlements in this municipality in a time prior to the arrival of Romans. Although it is supposed that there were already populated enclaves in the area during the Paleolithic, there are no remains of this time, so such a supposition could not be demonstrated. Nevertheless, remains of the Neolithic have reached up to the present day. For example, several burial mounds were found in the mountain range of Penouta in what is one of the vastest burial mound fields in the whole Asturias, with 72 catalogued tombs. Likewise, dolmens near Llaviada (nowadays disappeared) are supposed to date from this time, together with the oscillating granitic mass known as Penedo Aballón (located near Penouta, and knocked down in 2004, probably by a few vandals).
From the Bronze Age (approximately 1500-1100 b.C) are believed to date the anthropomorphic paintings (both masculine and feminine) found in the Cova del Demo ("Cave of Devil" in English), located near the hamlet of Froseira, in the civil parish of Doiras.
All the preceding facts, together with the signals of mining work devoted to the extraction of metals and, especially the Celtic fortifications of Pendia, Los Mazos and La Escrita also prove the aforementioned pre-Roman settlements.
The subsequent Roman presence, after the conquest carried out by the legions under command of General Publio Carisio (the X Gemina and the V Alaudae), left imprints such as several coins and ceramics fragments, as well as probably the origin of the names of some small villages such as Vega de Ouria, likely due to the presence of some river gold working in that time. In those days, it is believed that the area corresponding to the civil parish of Castrillón was populated by the astur tribe of Pesicos, whereas the area located western from the Navia River would have been inhabited by the gallaeci tribe of Albions.
After about four centuries of Roman domination, the barbarians entered the Iberian Peninsula, and Suebi settled down in the western area of Asturias, reaching their maximum expansion about the year 450. It is known that later arrived Visigoths, that occupied the whole territory about 584. However, there are very little archaeological remains of all those populations.
Middle Ages
Little is known about the history of Boal at the beginning of the Middle Ages, during the asturian monarchy. The fights between the bishops of Oviedo and Lugo for the territories located between the rivers Navia and Eo came to an end by means of an agreement promoted by the king Alfonso VII. Thus, all those territories and Boal included among them were submitted to the bishop of Oviedo by donation in the year 1154, under the generic denomination of territory of Castropol.
In 1368, the bishop D. Gutierre, appointed Alvar Pérez Osorio as "governor" of the Tierra de Ribadeo y Grandas, which comprised the current municipalities of Boal, Castropol, Coaña, El Franco, Grandas de Salime, Illano, Pesoz, San Martín de Oscos, Santa Eulalia de Oscos, Tapia, Taramundi and Vegadeo, having up to 41 parishes. This was a time of many violent uprisings because of the high taxes Pérez Osorio obliged the inhabitants of the area to pay.
Subsequently, bishops created several villages and municipalities, so at the beginning of the 16th century, the Tierra de Ribadeo was divided into five municipalities: Castropol, Piantón, Barres, El Franco and Grandas, with Boal belonging to the municipality of El Franco.
Modern Ages
This system of municipalities was in force until the arrival of the King Felipe II, who obtained permission from the Pope Gregory XIII to divide and sell any town, place and jurisdiction, what allowed him to obtain financing for wars and to pay the great debt he had. There were attempts of buying jurisdictions by some individuals (with the intention to advance in the social scale), but the most usual was the buying by the people.
This favored that in those years Boal disassociated from the Church. In 1579, Alonso López de Navia y Bolaño, an inhabitant of the town of Navia, gave power to Pedro Bermúdez to arrange with Alonso de Camino, who initially registered the parishes of Serandinas, Boal, Doiras, Pesoz, Coaña, Trelles, Villacondide, etc., expecting to buy them, for shortly after transferring the parishes of Boal, Serandinas and Doiras to Rui Garcia de Cangas in order to reduce expenses.
The fears of the people of villages to depend on the lords, considering the abuses they committed against their inhabitants, led them to "buy themselves" and to incorporate to the Crown. Thus, the parishes of Boal, Serandinas and Doiras were redeemed in 1580, starting to have the jurisdictional status of "realengo" (directly depending on the King).
The definitive independence of Boal as a municipality took place in 1584, when representatives of the inhabitants of its parishes met, drawing up the first local regulations and agreeing on the way to choose the offices of town councilors, mayor, constables, attorneys, etc. Thus, parishes became towns with civil and criminal jurisdiction, and representatives would meet once a year to choose the aforementioned offices. In this time, the capital of the municipality changed and it was held in several of its villages (Prelo, Armal, Castrillón, and the town of Boal), but it definitely returned to Boal in 1791.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, in which the clearly predominant activities in Boal were agriculture and cattle farming, beautiful family seats and palaces were built in the municipality, but at present most of them are almost completely disappeared, although with some exceptions such as the Palace of Miranda, in the village of Prelo. There is no doubt that the 18th century was the most prosperous for the municipality because, in addition to the fundamental farming activities, the craftwork industries became noticeably important too, and by the middle of this century there were 4 fulling mills, 8 mallets to stretch iron, one forge, and 42 mills for grain.
19th century
It is also known that during the Spanish War of Independence the French troops occupied Boal in the belief that the town hosted a weapons factory. A group of inhabitants of Boal took part in the "Alarma del cerezal" (a group of people who met to avoid an invasion or to defend from the enemy), but they could not avoid Maurice Mathieu’s soldiers to invade the town on March 19, 1809, establishing a camp in Llaviada, and causing numerous deaths, plundering and damages.
A few years later, in 1814 and 1820, Serandinas unsuccessfully tried to become a municipality independent of Boal. Furthermore, in July 1823 noticeable damages were caused by a group of about 24 robbers commanded by Miguel Álvarez Samartino de la Trapa, who stole money from the taxes income and tore documents of the municipal secretary’s office. It is believed that two inhabitants of Armal could have taken part in these happenings, but they could not be captured as people in their village would have covered them up.
During the Carlist Wars the municipality was invaded again: in 1836, a guerrilla group commanded by San Breixo entered in Boal, but he was captured in the following year and subsequently executed by firing squad in the cemetery of Piantón by a militia formed in Boal. Shortly after, in 1837, it was inaugurated the parish church devoted to Santiago Apóstol, and in 1842, the town hall and the jail.
It is also worth mentioning other events that took place in the municipality in this century. Among them is the cholera epidemic of 1854 and 1855, although it was not excessively virulent. That was not the case of the smallpox epidemic of 1870, much more serious and deadly.
Also in the 19th century, Boal saw the birth of one of its most distinguished figures, Bernardo Acevedo y Huelves, whose name was later given to the municipal library. Among his works it is worth highlighting "Boal y su concejo" ("Boal and its municipality"), a very clarifying picture about the way of life and the customs in the municipality at the end of the 19th century, which also shows the importance the industry of iron forge (at present disappeared) had by that time.
In connection with this, it is worth mentioning the uprising that took place in 1895, in which the forgers of the municipality destroyed all the machines for making tacks that Víctor Sánchez, a local businessman, was installing in the village of Armal with the aim to start a strong tacking industry able to face the great external competition, especially that English one, which finally made unfeasible the traditional means of working iron in the municipality.
20th century
The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th were years of important migratory flows, especially to the Americas. From these years date several large houses, property of emigrants who had made fortune in the Americas, such as for example Villa Anita. In addition, the money furnished by many emigrants contributed decisively to the construction of various schools in several villages of the municipality and the elementary school of the capital town, known as "Las Graduadas", in 1934, which was promoted by the "Sociedad de Instrucción Naturales del Concejo de Boal" ("Association for the Education Natives of the Municipality of Boal") in La Habana (Cuba). Also in these years several public washing houses were built in the municipality.
Some other infrastructures of capital relevance for Boal were built at the beginning of the 20th century. That was the case of the road connecting Navia and Grandas de Salime, with the construction of the stretch from Navia to Boal. Furthermore, in 1934 it was built the dam of Doiras, and in the year 1951 it was started the large-scale exploitation of the tungsten mines near Penouta, although they closed in 1961.
The decadence of tungsten mining, which had employed up to 254 workers, and the end of the construction of the big reservoirs along the Navia River, together with the gradual abandonment of cattle farming (still at present the main economic activity of the municipality) led to new migratory flows, especially from the 1950s on, but in this case they were directed preferentially to other regions of Spain (the industrialized center of Asturias, Madrid, etc.) or to Europe (Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, etc.), giving rise to a progressive depopulation that still continues at present.
Geography
Physical geography
Being located in the middle basin of the Navia River, the municipality of Boal is crossed by that river from south/south-east to north-east, where its course acts as a natural border with the neighboring municipality of Villayón. On its way through this municipality, the Navia River is dammed first in Doiras, and later, downstream, by that of Arbón, already located in Villayón. Two noticeable tributaries pouring their water on the Navia River in the municipality of Boal are the Urubio River (in the reservoir of Doiras) and the Pendia River (in the reservoir of Arbón).
The main elevation of the terrain is located already bordering with the municipalities of Illano and Castropol: it is the range of La Bobia, of 1,201 m above sea level. It is also worth mentioning La Cristaleira (1,036 m) in the southern area of the municipality, Pena Queimada (921 m) in the north-western area, Penouta (899 m) in the northern zone (from there it is possible to see a wide panoramic view of the coast from the municipality of Navia to the environs of Foz, in the province of Lugo) and Penácaros (732 m) in the central area. The capital town of the municipality is located relatively far away from the main valley of the Navia River, in the headwaters of the Pendia River and surrounded by the three aforementioned mountains, at about 450 m above sea level.
Civil parishes
The municipality of Boal is divided in 7 civil parishes:
Boal (in Eonavian: Bual): 966 inhabitants.
Castrillón (in Eonavian: Castriyón): 182 inhabitants.
Doiras: 153 inhabitants.
Lebredo (in Eonavian: Llebredo): 13 inhabitants.
La Ronda (in Eonavian: A Ronda): 63 inhabitants.
Rozadas: 176 inhabitants.
Serandinas (in Eonavian: Serandías): 223 inhabitants.
(Source: INE)
Main populated places
Boal: 526 inhabitants.
Armal: 154 inhabitants.
Doiras: 98 inhabitants.
Miñagón: 94 inhabitants.
Rozadas: 79 inhabitants.
Serandinas: 69 inhabitants.
Prelo: 61 inhabitants.
Los Mazos: 49 inhabitants.
Sampol: 41 inhabitants.
Castrillón: 39 inhabitants.
(Source: INE)
The parish of Boal
The parish of Boal is in size with a population of 1,137 (INE 2007).
The town of Boal is the head of this civil parish and also the capital of the homonymous municipality. It is located in the south-eastern mountainside of the Penouta range near the headwaters of the Pendia River, at about 450 m above sea level. It has a population of 588 inhabitants, being they distributed among the three main districts which the town consists of:
Boal de Arriba (Upper Boal): this is the historical nucleus of the village, with narrow streets (Alonso Rodríguez Street and Buenos Aires Avenue) where the older houses are located, together with the fairground that hosts the cattle market, and the cemetery.
Zona central (Central area): includes the Plaza de la Iglesia (Church Square), where the parish church devoted to Santiago Apóstol is located, the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (Town Hall Square) and the Asturias Avenue, where the Casa de Cultura (House of Culture) that hosts the municipal library, and most of the shops and bars, restaurants and hotels are located. This area includes also the Everardo Villamil Street and the Republic of Cuba Avenue.
Boal de Abajo (Lower Boal): it has grown along the AS-12 road (Melquiades Álvarez Street and Isidoro Fontana Street) and the Rosalía de la Cruz Street, hosting some interesting examples of the architecture of those emigrants who had made fortune in the Americas, among which we can stress the Casa de Damiana (1919) and, already on the road out of the village in direction to Grandas de Salime, Villa Anita (1926), decorated with glazed tiles in all its façades. Moreover, the elementary school (Escuelas Graduadas, nowadays called Centro Público de Educación Básica Carlos Bousoño) and the high school, together with the municipal sports center and pool are located in this area.
Villages of the parish of Boal
Demography
Evolution of the population in the municipality of Boal since 1842 (Source: INE)
During the first decades of the 19th century the municipality of Boal kept a slow increase of population that was noticeably accelerated with the construction of the dam of Doiras in 1930, reaching in that year its historical maximum of 7,365 inhabitants. The relatively high levels of population remained until 1960, not just because of the dam but also because of the tungsten mining near Penouta and because of the existence of a traditional agriculture requiring a lot of labor. Thanks to all these factors, the municipality of Boal could be once the most populous one in the middle course of the Navia River. Nevertheless, from 1960 on and due to the closing of mines and to the changes experienced by the traditional agriculture, a very important migratory flow started.
Emigration has marked the municipality in different ways. By the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th one, the migratory flow went overseas, to the Americas, especially to Argentina and Cuba, from where emigrants kept their influence in the municipality. A proof of that are the very important money transferences they made and which allowed the construction of different buildings, as well as their promoting of the education of the remaining youth in Boal. All this flow of money was interrupted by the Cuban revolution.
By the middle of the 20th century emigration started again and strongly, but this time it was directed to different destinations: to the centre of Europe, France, Germany, and also to the main industrial towns and cities of Asturias, especially Gijón and Avilés, etc.
All these facts have brought a dramatic change in the demographic figure of the municipality, to the point that, as it can be observed on its representation, at present people over 60 years old constitute up to 42,7% of the total population, whereas people below 20 years old represent just as low as 8,4%.
(Source: INE)
Economy
Although the percentage of workers is clearly a majority in the service sector (see table), its weight is quite lower than the regional mean, and it is not crazy to state that still at present, economy in Boal is based to a large extent on cattle farming, which employs almost one third of the working population, and is mainly destined to milk production, being Boal the main producer among the western municipalities in Asturias.
In recent years apiculture has experienced a noticeable growth, becoming honey one of the most typical products in the municipality. In spite of this, this activity is usually in a secondary place, constituting an extra-earnings source for many families, but not the main one. Nevertheless, as a proof of the importance of apiculture for the municipality, it is worth mentioning the famous Feria de la Miel (Honey Fair). Moreover, a few years ago it started working the company Boal Apícola, which markets about 20 tons of honey a year.
Politics
The political party that has been ruling during more time in the municipality of Boal since 1979 has been the PSOE. The current mayor is the socialist José Antonio Barrientos, who is in his office since 1999, having been re-elected three times.
Gastronomy
In this mainly agricultural and farming municipality we can taste infinity of natural products, among which it is worth mentioning its excellent vegetables, beans and the great quality potatoes. Thus, Boal’s traditional cooking makes use of all those resources to have among its most typical dishes the stock with "cimois" (rapini) or collard greens.
Being this municipality rich in meat, such as veal, pork, kid, lamb and mutton, etc., it is not surprising other dishes such as the meat or sausages pie, the lacón with rapini and "cachelos" (pieces of cooked potato) or the corn "rapa" (similar to a pie but using corn and bacon) have a prominent place too. Game constitutes another important chapter in Boal’s cooking, being frequent pieces such as roe deer and wild boar, apart from partridge, Eurasian woodcock and hare.
Regarding sweets and pastry, it is worth mentioning "cocadas", "venera" (a kind of almond-based marzipan) and "cereixolos". Moreover, honey has a huge variety of applications on the local cooking, which is not surprising taking into account that it is a typical product in the municipality having widely recognized quality. And, of course, it is possible in Boal to enjoy the rest of asturian typical dishes.
Tourism
Its most ancient signs are the cave paintings in the Cova del Demo. They are male, female and zoomorphic paintings. We can also find different architectural examples: palaces, large houses and churches, among which it is worth mentioning the following:
The Miranda Palace in Prelo, built during the 15th and 16th centuries and declared "well of cultural interest" in 1982. At first it consisted in a square tower with three floors that was subsequently extended. It had small openings that were later enlarged. The main body of the palace has two floors in the back side and one floor in the front side, due to the unevenness of the terrain. Above the entrance door it is placed a big coat of arms belonging to the family González de Prelo y Castrillón. Between the tower and the chapel there is an extra body, with corridors supported by stone columns. The chapel dates from 1776, having rectangle floor with two loopholes in both wings, and two Rococo-inspired altarpieces painted in black and white. The wooden sculptures from the 17th and 18th centuries were removed because of the bad situation of the ceiling.
The Berdín Palace in Doiras, from the 18th century, which attracts the attention because of its great size and its walls without any kind of decoration. It is constructed with masonry, with blocks of stone. Its floor has a U shape, and in the façade of the central courtyard there is a gallery above monolithic columns.
The Palace of Armal, with the typical structure of the rural large houses: rectangular floor, built with masonry and slate, and having very little decoration.
Villa Anita: it was built in 1926 by an emigrant to Cuba. It is a villa with a T-shaped floor, with three floors, in which English influences can be observed, together with Japanese ones and others from the Middle Ages. The façade is decorated with white ceramics (glazed tiles from Talavera) on its wings, having the main façade plant patterns. There is a glazed balcony on the first floor. The roof has two wings and it is covered with slate, and over the eaves it has some wooden decoration made of cut borders. The inside is as rich and well-preserved as the outside.
Villa Damiana, built in 1919, is also a wonderful example of the historically-inspired architecture.
Old Elementary School "Escuelas Graduadas" in Boal: this school was built between 1930 and 1934, promoted as other public works in the municipality by the "Sociedad de Instrucción Naturales del Concejo de Boal", founded in La Habana, Cuba (this was due to the high number of emigrants from Boal who had gone to that country in search of fortune) although it had also money contribution from the state and from emigrants in Buenos Aires. It is a great building constructed with stone, with large windows and two entrances framed by big porchs, because boys entered by one wing whereas girls entered by the opposite one. All the roofs have big wooden eaves.
The Church of Santiago Apóstol in Boal, built between 1831 and 1837, with a Latin cross-shaped floor and a lateral porch built of granitic blocks of stone.
The public Washing House in Boal, built thanks to the money sent by emigrants to the Americas and inaugurated in 1928. It has been recently restored and transformed into the Center for the Interpretation of the Washing Houses in the municipality of Boal. The building exhibits an important constructive wealth with a functional style, having mouldings and pinnacles, and it is a good example of the charitable anxiety for their native villages and for the poorest people of the returning emigrants.
Casa de la Apicultura is an apiculture museum.
Festivities
The municipality of Boal hosts a great number of festivities and fairs. Among the most important ones we can stress the following:
On May 15: the feast in honor of San Isidro which is held close to its hermitage in the mountain near the Penouta range.
On June 13 and 14: the feast in honor of San Antonio in Armal.
On July 24, 25 and 26: the feast in honor of Santiago Apóstol, in Boal. On July 21 and 22, the feast in honor of the Virgen de la Magdalena in Doiras.
On August 25: the feast in honor of San Luis in the homonym village.
In October/November: the Feria de la Miel (Honey Fair) at the last weekend of October or the first one of November.
It is also worth mentioning the fortnightly market that takes place in Boal, hosted on every alternate Mondays. In addition, there are also several cattle markets during the year. Two of them are hosted in the fairground of Boal on the second Saturday of October and on the last one of April, and other two are hosted in the La Bobia range: on May 29, that of San Fernando and on June 26 that of San Pelayo.
People from Boal
Celestino Álvarez, writer and journalist immigrated to Cuba.
Carlos Bousoño, poet and literary critic.
See also
List of mayors of Boal
Castrillón (Boal)
References
External links
Federación Asturiana de Concejos (Asturian Association of Municipalities)
Boal in the Guía del Occidente (Guide of Western Asturias)
Situation of the reservoir of Doiras
Boal in asturiasturismo.com
Personal website about Boal, with infinity of pictures of the municipality
Monograph about Boal in the journal La Nueva España
Fundación Parque Histórico del Navia (Foundation Historical Park of the Navia)
Compendium of etymologies in asturian toponymy
Search engine of asturian place names in the journal La Nueva España
This article incorporates material from the Federación Asturiana de Concejos, which allowed through an authorization the addition of contents and their publication under the GFDL license.
Municipalities in Asturias
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Compost is a mixture of ingredients used to fertilize and improve the soil. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant and food waste and recycling organic materials. The resulting mixture is rich in plant nutrients and beneficial organisms, such as worms and fungal mycelium. Compost improves soil fertility in gardens, landscaping, horticulture, urban agriculture, and organic farming. The benefits of compost include providing nutrients to crops as fertilizer, acting as a soil conditioner, increasing the humus or humic acid contents of the soil, and introducing beneficial colonies of microbes that help to suppress pathogens in the soil. It also reduces expenses on commercial chemical fertilizers for recreational gardeners and commercial farmers alike. Compost can also be used for land and stream reclamation, wetland construction, and landfill cover.
At the simplest level, composting requires gathering a mix of 'Greens' and 'Browns'. Greens are materials that are rich in nitrogen such as leaves, grass, and food scraps. Browns are more woody materials that are rich in carbon, such as stalks, paper, and wood chips. Materials are wetted to break them down into humus, a process that occurs for months. However, composting can also take place as a multi-step, closely monitored process with measured inputs of water, air, and carbon- and nitrogen-rich materials. The decomposition process is aided by shredding the plant matter, adding water, and ensuring proper aeration by regularly turning the mixture in a process that uses open piles or "windrows." Fungi, earthworms, and other detritivores further break up the organic material. Aerobic bacteria and fungi manage the chemical process by converting the inputs into heat, carbon dioxide, and ammonium. Composting is an important part of waste management since food and other compostable materials make up about 20% of waste in landfills and these materials take longer to biodegrade in the landfill. Composting offers an environmentally superior alternative to using organic material for landfill because composting reduces methane production, and provides economic and environmental co-benefits.
Fundamentals
Composting is an aerobic method (meaning it requires air) of decomposing organic solid wastes. It can therefore be used to recycle organic material. The process involves decomposing organic material into a humus-like material, known as compost, which is a good fertilizer for plants.
Composting organisms require four equally important ingredients to work effectively:
Carbon — for energy; the microbial oxidation of carbon produces the heat required for other parts of the composting process. High carbon materials tend to be brown and dry.
Nitrogen — to grow and reproduce more organisms to oxidize the carbon. High nitrogen materials tend to be green and wet. They can also include colourful fruits and vegetables.
Oxygen — for oxidizing the carbon, the decomposition process. Aerobic bacteria needs oxygen levels >5% to perform the processes needed for composting.
Water — in the right amounts to maintain activity without causing anaerobic conditions.
Certain ratios of these materials will allow microorganisms to work at a rate that will heat up the compost pile. Active management of the pile (e.g., turning) is needed to maintain sufficient oxygen and the right moisture level. The air/water balance is critical to maintaining high temperatures until the materials are broken down.
Composting is most efficient with a carbon:nitrogen ratio of about 25:1. hot composting focuses on retaining heat to increase the decomposition rate thus producing compost more quickly. Rapid composting is favored by having a carbon:nitrogen ratio of ~30 or less. Above 30 the substrate is nitrogen starved. Below 15 it is likely to outgas a portion of nitrogen as ammonia.
Nearly all dead plant and animal materials have both carbon and nitrogen in different amounts. Fresh grass clippings have an average ratio of about 15:1 and dry autumn leaves about 50:1 depending upon species. Composting is an ongoing and dynamic process, adding new sources of carbon and nitrogen consistently as well as active management is important.
Organisms
Organisms can break down organic matter in compost if provided with the correct mixture of water, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. They fall into two broad categories: chemical decomposers which perform chemical processes on the organic waste, and physical decomposers which process the waste into smaller pieces through methods such as grinding, tearing, chewing, and digesting.
Chemical decomposers
Bacteria - The most abundant and important of all the microorganisms found in compost. Bacteria process carbon and nitrogen and excrete plant available nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and magnesium. Depending on the phase of composting, mesophilic or thermophilic bacteria may be the most prominent.
Mesophilic bacteria get compost to the thermophilic stage through oxidation of organic material. Afterwards, they cure it which makes the fresh compost more bio-available for plants.
Thermophilic bacteria do not reproduce and are not active between −5 to 25 °C yet are found throughout soil. They activate once the mesophilic bacteria have begun to breakdown organic matter and increase the temperature to their optimal range. They have been shown to enter soils via rainwater. They are present so broadly because of many factors including their spores being resilient. Thermophilic bacteria thrive from (40-60 °C), and only large-scale composting - such as windrow composting - operations generally exceed (60-65 °C), beyond which point many beneficial microorganisms will die.
Actinobacteria are needed to break down paper products such as newspaper, bark, etc and other large molecules such as lignin and cellulose that are more difficult to decompose. The "pleasant earthy smell of compost" is attributed to actinobacteria. They make carbon, ammonia, and nitrogen nutrients available to plants.
Fungi such as mold and yeast help break down materials that bacteria cannot, especially cellulose and lignin in woody material.
Protozoa - contribute to biodegradation of organic matter as well as consuming non-active bacteria, fungi, and micro-organic particulates.
Physical decomposers
Ants - create nests, making the soil more porous and transporting nutrients to different areas of the compost.
Beetles - grubs feed on decaying vegetables.
Earthworms - ingest partly composted material and excrete worm castings, making nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium available to plants. The tunnels they create as they move through the compost also increase aeration and drainage.
Flies - feed on almost all organic material and input bacteria into the compost. Their population is kept in check by mites and the thermophilic temperatures that are unsuitable for fly larvae.
Millipedes - break down plant material.
Rotifers - feed on plant particles.
Snails and Slugs - feed on living or fresh plant material. They should be removed from compost before use as they can damage plants and crops.
Sow Bugs - feed on rotting wood, and decaying vegetation.
Springtails - feed on fungi, mold, and decomposing plants.
Phases of composting
Under ideal conditions, composting proceeds through three major phases:
Mesophilic phase: An initial, mesophilic phase, in which the decomposition is carried out under moderate temperatures by mesophilic microorganisms.
Thermophilic phase: As the temperature rises, a second, thermophilic phase starts, in which various thermophilic bacteria carry out the decomposition under higher temperatures (.)
Maturation phase: As the supply of high-energy compounds dwindles, the temperature starts to decrease, and the mesophilic bacteria once again predominate in the maturation phase.
Hot and cold composting - impact on timing
The time required to compost material relates to the volume of material, the size of the inputs (e.g. wood chips break down faster than branches), and the amount of mixing and aeration. Generally, larger piles will reach higher temperatures and remain in a thermophilic stage for days or weeks. This is referred to as hot composting and is the normal method for large-scale (e.g., municipal) composting facilities and many agricultural operations.
A process often referred to as the 'Berkeley method' produces finished compost in eighteen days. Still, it requires assembly of at least a cubic meter of material at the outset and requires turning every two days after a four-day initial phase. Many such short processes involve a few changes to traditional methods, including smaller, more homogenized pieces in the compost, controlling carbon to nitrogen ratio (C:N) at 30 to 1 or less, and monitoring the moisture level carefully.
Cold composting is a slower process that can take up to a year to complete. It results from smaller piles, including many residential compost piles that receive small amounts of kitchen and garden waste over extended periods. Piles smaller than approximately a cubic meter have trouble reaching and maintaining high temperatures. Turning is not necessary with cold composting. However, there is a risk that parts of the pile may go anaerobic as they get compacted or water-logged.
Pathogen removal
Composting can destroy some pathogens or unwanted seeds, those that are destroyed by temperatures above .
Dealing with stabilized compost - i.e. composted material in which microorganisms have finished digesting the organic matter and the temperature has reached between 50-70 °C - poses very little risk as these temperatures kill pathogens and even make oocysts unviable. The temperature at which a pathogen dies depends on the pathogen, how long the temperature is maintained (it can take seconds to weeks), and even pH.
Compost products like compost tea and compost extracts have been found to have an inhibitory effect on Fusarium oxysporum, Rhizoctonia sp., and Pythium debaryanum, plant pathogens that can cause crop diseases. Aerated compost teas are more effective than compost extracts. The microbiota and enzymes present in compost extracts also have a suppressive effect on fungal plant pathogens. Compost is a good source of biocontrol agents like B. subtilis, B. licheniformis, and P. chrysogenum that fight plant pathogens. However, sterilizing the compost, compost tea, or compost extracts will reduce the effect of pathogen suppression.
Diseases that can be contracted from handling compost
When turning compost that has not gone through phases where temperatures >50 °C are reached, a mouth mask and gloves must be worn to protect from diseases that can be contracted from handling compost. These include:
Aspergillosis
Farmer's Lung
Histoplasmosis - a fungus that grows in guano and bird droppings
Legionnaire’s Disease.
Paronychia - via infection around the fingernails and toenails
Tetanus - a central nervous system disease, caused by bacteria that are very common in soil
Oocytes are made unviable thanks to the phase where the temperature reaches temperatures of +50 °C.
Materials that can be composted
Potential sources of compostable materials, or feedstocks, include residential, agricultural, and commercial waste streams. Residential food or yard waste can be composted at home, or collected for inclusion in a large-scale municipal composting facility. In some regions, it could also be included in a local or neighborhood composting project.
Organic solid waste
There are two broad categories of organic solid waste: green waste and brown waste.
Green waste is generally considered a source of nitrogen and includes pre and post-consumer food waste, grass clippings, garden trimmings, and fresh leaves. Animal carcasses, roadkill, and butcher residue can also be composted and these are considered nitrogen sources.
Brown waste is a carbon source. Typical examples are dried vegetation and woody material such as fallen leaves, straw, woodchips, limbs, logs, pine needles, sawdust, and wood ash but not charcoal ash. Products derived from wood such as paper and plain cardboard are also considered carbon sources.
Animal manure and bedding
On many farms, the basic composting ingredients are animal manure generated on the farm as a nitrogen source, and bedding as the carbon source. Straw and sawdust are common bedding materials. Non-traditional bedding materials are also used, including newspaper and chopped cardboard. The amount of manure composted on a livestock farm is often determined by cleaning schedules, land availability, and weather conditions. Each type of manure has its own physical, chemical, and biological characteristics. Cattle and horse manures, when mixed with bedding, possess good qualities for composting. Swine manure, which is very wet and usually not mixed with bedding material, must be mixed with straw or similar raw materials. Poultry manure must be blended with high-carbon, low-nitrogen materials.
Human excreta
Human excreta can be added as an input to the composting process since it is a nitrogen-rich organic material. It can be either composted directly in composting toilets, or indirectly in the form of sewage sludge after it has undergone treatment in a sewage treatment plant. Both processes require capable design as there are potential health risks that need to be managed. In the case of home composting, a wide range of microorganisms including bacteria, viruses and parasitic worms can be present in feces, and improper processing can pose significant health risks. In the case of large sewage treatment facilities that collect wastewater from a range of residential, commercial and industrial sources, there are additional considerations. The composted sewage sludge, referred to as biosolids, can be contaminated with a variety of metals and pharmaceutical compounds. Insufficient processing of biosolids can also lead to problems when the material is applied to land.
Urine can be put on compost piles or directly used as fertilizer. Adding urine to compost can increase temperatures and therefore increase its ability to destroy pathogens and unwanted seeds. Unlike feces, urine does not attract disease-spreading flies (such as houseflies or blowflies), and it does not contain the most hardy of pathogens, such as parasitic worm eggs.
Animal remains
Animal carcasses may be composed as a disposal option. Such material is rich in nitrogen.
Human body
Composting, or formally "natural organic reduction", is an emerging approach to the environmentally-friendly dispose of human bodies. When mixed with wood chips and allowed to compost, a human corpse turn into compost in a month.
Composting technologies
Industrial-scale
In-vessel composting
Aerated static pile composting
Windrow composting
Other systems at household level
Hügelkultur (raised garden beds or mounds)
The practice of making raised garden beds or mounds filled with rotting wood is also called hügelkultur in German. It is in effect creating a nurse log that is covered with soil.
Benefits of hügelkultur garden beds include water retention and warming of soil. Buried wood acts like a sponge as it decomposes, able to capture water and store it for later use by crops planted on top of the hügelkultur bed.
Composting toilets
Related technologies
Vermicompost (also called worm castings, worm humus, worm manure, or worm faeces) is the end-product of the breakdown of organic matter by earthworms. These castings have been shown to contain reduced levels of contaminants and a higher saturation of nutrients than the organic materials before vermicomposting.
Black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae are able to rapidly consume large amounts of organic material and can be used to treat human waste. The resulting compost still contains nutrients and can be used for biogas production, or further traditional composting or vermicomposting
Bokashi is a fermentation process rather than a decomposition process and the resulting material still needs to break down. It can be used as feedstock for compost.
Co-composting is a technique that processes organic solid waste together with other input materials such as dewatered fecal sludge or sewage sludge.
Anaerobic digestion combined with mechanical sorting of mixed waste streams is increasingly being used in developed countries due to regulations controlling the amount of organic matter allowed in landfills. Treating biodegradable waste before it enters a landfill reduces global warming from fugitive methane; untreated waste breaks down anaerobically in a landfill, producing landfill gas that contains methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The methane produced in an anaerobic digester can be converted to biogas.
Uses
Agriculture and gardening
On the open ground, for growing wheat, corn, soybeans, and similar crops, compost can be broadcast across the top of the soil using spreader trucks or spreaders pulled behind a tractor. It is expected that the spread layer is very thin (approximately 6 mm (0.25 in.)) and worked into the soil prior to planting. However, application rates of 25 mm (one in.) or more are not unusual when trying to rebuild poor soils or control erosion. Due to the extremely high cost of compost per unit of nutrients in the western world (such as the United States) on-farm use is relatively rare since rates over 4 tons/acre can not be afforded. This results from an over-emphasis on "recycling organic matter" than on "sustainable nutrients." In other countries such as Germany, where compost distribution and spreading are partially subsidized in the original waste fees, compost is used more frequently on open ground, but only on the premise of nutrient "sustainability"
In plasticulture, strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, melons, and other fruits and vegetables are often grown under plastic to control temperature, retain moisture and control weeds. Compost may be banded (applied in strips along rows) and worked into the soil prior to bedding and planting, be applied at the same time the beds are constructed and plastic laid down, or used as a "top dressing".
Many crops are not seeded directly in the field but are started in seed trays in a greenhouse (see transplanting). When the seedlings reach a certain stage of growth, they are transplanted in the field. Compost can be used as an ingredient in the mix used to grow the seedlings, but is not normally used as the only planting substrate. The crop to be grown and the seeds' sensitivity to nutrients, salts, etc. dictates the ratio of the blend, and maturity is important to insure that oxygen deprivation will not occur or that no lingering phyto-toxins remain.
Compost can be added to soil, coir, or peat, as a tilth improver, supplying humus and nutrients. It provides a rich growing medium as absorbent material. This material contains moisture and soluble minerals, which provide support and nutrients. Although it is rarely used alone, plants can flourish from mixed soil, sand, grit, bark chips, vermiculite, perlite, or clay granules to produce loam. Compost can be tilled directly into the soil or growing medium to boost the level of organic matter and the overall fertility of the soil. Compost that is ready to be used as an additive is dark brown or even black with an earthy smell.
Generally, direct seeding into a compost is not recommended due to the speed with which it may dry, the possible presence of phytotoxins in immature compost that may inhibit germination, and the possible tie up of nitrogen by incompletely decomposed lignin. It is very common to see blends of 20–30% compost used for transplanting seedlings.
Compost can be used to increase plant immunity to diseases and pests.
Compost tea
Compost tea is made up of extracts of fermented water leached from composted materials. Composts can be either aerated or non-aerated depending on its fermentation process. Compost teas are generally produced from adding compost to water in a ratio of 1:4 - 1:10, occasionally stirring to release microbes.
There has been debate about the benefits of aerating the mixture. Non-aerated compost tea is cheaper and less labor intensive. However, there are conflicting studies regarding the risks of phytotoxicity and human pathogen regrowth. Aerated compost tea brews faster and generates more microbes, but has potential for human pathogen regrowth.
Field studies have shown the benefits of adding compost teas to crops due to organic matter input, increased nutrient availability, and increased microbial activity. They have also been shown to have a suppressive effect on plant pathogens and soil-borne diseases. The efficacy is influenced by a number of factors, such as the preparation process, the type of source the conditions of the brewing process, and the environment of the crops. Adding nutrients to compost tea can be beneficial for disease suppression, although it can trigger the regrowth of human pathogens like E. coli and Salmonella.
Compost extract
Compost extracts are unfermented or non-brewed extracts of leached compost contents dissolved in any solvent.
Commercial sale
Compost can be sold as bagged potting mixes in garden centers and other outlets. This may include composted materials such as manure and peat but is also likely to contain loam, fertilizers, sand, grit, etc. Varieties include multi-purpose composts designed for most aspects of planting, John Innes formulations, grow bags, designed to have crops such as tomatoes directly planted into them. There are also a range of specialist composts available, e.g. for vegetables, orchids, houseplants, hanging baskets, roses, ericaceous plants, seedlings, potting on, etc.
Other
Compost can also be used for land and stream reclamation, wetland construction, and landfill cover.
The temperatures generated by compost can be used to heat greenhouses, such as by being placed around the outside edges.
Regulations
There are process and product guidelines in Europe that date to the early 1980s (Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland) and only more recently in the UK and the US. In both these countries, private trade associations within the industry have established loose standards, some say as a stop-gap measure to discourage independent government agencies from establishing tougher consumer-friendly standards. Compost is regulated in Canada and Australia as well.
EPA Class A and B guidelines in the United States were developed solely to manage the processing and beneficial reuse of sludge, also now called biosolids, following the US EPA ban of ocean dumping. About 26 American states now require composts to be processed according to these federal protocols for pathogen and vector control, even though the application to non-sludge materials has not been scientifically tested. An example is that green waste composts are used at much higher rates than sludge composts were ever anticipated to be applied at. U.K guidelines also exist regarding compost quality, as well as Canadian, Australian, and the various European states.
In the United States, some compost manufacturers participate in a testing program offered by a private lobbying organization called the U.S. Composting Council. The USCC was originally established in 1991 by Procter & Gamble to promote composting of disposable diapers, following state mandates to ban diapers in landfills, which caused a national uproar. Ultimately the idea of composting diapers was abandoned, partly since it was not proven scientifically to be possible, and mostly because the concept was a marketing stunt in the first place. After this, composting emphasis shifted back to recycling organic wastes previously destined for landfills. There are no bonafide quality standards in America, but the USCC sells a seal called "Seal of Testing Assurance" (also called "STA"). For a considerable fee, the applicant may display the USCC logo on products, agreeing to volunteer to customers a current laboratory analysis that includes parameters such as nutrients, respiration rate, salt content, pH, and limited other indicators.
Many countries such as Wales and some individual cities such as Seattle and San Francisco require food and yard waste to be sorted for composting (San Francisco Mandatory Recycling and Composting Ordinance).
The USA is the only Western country that does not distinguish sludge-source compost from green-composts, and by default 50% of US states expect composts to comply in some manner with the federal EPA 503 rule promulgated in 1984 for sludge products.
History
Composting dates back to at least the early Roman Empire, and was mentioned as early as Cato the Elder's 160 BCE piece De Agri Cultura. Traditionally, composting involved piling organic materials until the next planting season, at which time the materials would have decayed enough to be ready for use in the soil. The advantage of this method is that little working time or effort is required from the composter and it fits in naturally with agricultural practices in temperate climates. Disadvantages (from the modern perspective) are that space is used for a whole year, some nutrients might be leached due to exposure to rainfall, and disease-producing organisms and insects may not be adequately controlled.
Composting was somewhat modernized beginning in the 1920s in Europe as a tool for organic farming. The first industrial station for the transformation of urban organic materials into compost was set up in Wels, Austria in the year 1921. Early proponents of composting within farming include Rudolf Steiner, founder of a farming method called biodynamics, and Annie Francé-Harrar, who was appointed on behalf of the government in Mexico and supported the country in 1950–1958 to set up a large humus organization in the fight against erosion and soil degradation. Sir Albert Howard, who worked extensively in India on sustainable practices, and Lady Eve Balfour were also major proponents of composting. Composting was imported to America by the likes of:
J.I. Rodale - founder of Rodale Organic Gardening
E.E. Pfeiffer - developed scientific practices in biodynamic farming
Paul Keene - founder of Walnut Acres in Pennsylvania
and Scott and Helen Nearing - inspired the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s
See also
Carbon farming
Human composting
Organic farming
Permaculture
Soil science
Sustainable agriculture
Terra preta
Waste sorting
Zero waste
Related lists
List of composting systems
List of environment topics
List of sustainable agriculture topics
List of organic gardening and farming topics
References
Organic fertilizers
Waste management
Gardening aids
Sanitation
Soil improvers
Soil
Sustainable food system
Biodegradable waste management
Permaculture
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Indigenous Australians are both convicted of crimes and imprisoned at a disproportionately higher rate in Australia, as well as being over-represented as victims of crime. , Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners represented 28% of the total adult prisoner population, while accounting for 2% of the general adult population (3.3% of the total population). Various explanations have been given for this over-representation, both historical and more recent. Federal and state governments and Indigenous groups have responded with various analyses, programs and measures.
Background
Many sources report over-representation of Indigenous offenders at all stages of the criminal justice system. , Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners represented 28% of the total adult prisoner population, while accounting for 3.3% of the general population.
The links between lower socioeconomic status and the associated issues that come with it (inadequate housing, low academic achievement, poor health, poor parenting, etc.) to all types of crime are well-established, if complex, and disadvantage is greater in Indigenous communities than non-Indigenous ones in Australia.
These reasons have been well documented, as pointed out by National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS) and the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia (ALSWA). According to ALSWA these "have been repeatedly examined by numerous federal and state inquiries", and the reasons fall into two categories: "The first category are underlying factors that contribute to higher rates of offending (e.g., socio-economic disadvantage, the impact of colonisation and dispossession, Stolen Generations, intergenerational trauma, substance use disorder, homelessness and overcrowding, lack of education and physical and mental health issues). The second category is structural bias or discriminatory practices within the justice system itself (i.e., the failure to recognise cultural differences and the existence of laws, processes, and practices within the justice system that discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against Aboriginal people such as over-policing practices by Western Australia Police, punitive bail conditions imposed by police and inflexible and unreasonable exercises or prosecutorial decisions by police)."
A submission by Mick Gooda to a 2016 government report emphasised that the rates of crime and incarceration of Indigenous people could not be viewed separately from history or the current social context. He referred to Don Weatherburn's work, which showed four key risk factors for involvement in the criminal justice system: poor parenting (particularly child neglect and abuse); poor school performance and/or early school leaving; unemployment; and substance use. Indigenous Australians fare much worse than non-Indigenous citizens in relation to these four factors, and mental illness, including foetal alcohol spectrum disorders, and overcrowded housing also play a part.
By category
Violent crime
The main source of information on homicides is the National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP), which was established in 1990 at the Australian Institute of Criminology. A 2001 study by Jenny Mouzos, using data from 1 July 1989 to 30 June 2000, showed that 15.7% of homicide offenders and 15.1% of homicide victims were Indigenous, while census statistics showed the rate of indigeneity of the population at around 2% in 2000 (since found to be too low a figure). The statistics were imperfect also because NHMP data is gathered from police records, which may not always identify race accurately, but an earlier review had reported "...although the statistics are imperfect, they are sufficient to demonstrate the disproportionate occurrence of violence in the Indigenous communities of Australia and the traumatic impact on Indigenous people.(Memmott et al. 2001, p. 6)". The study reported that the homicides were largely unpremeditated, and most occurred within the family environment, with alcohol involved.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence (2000, p. ix) reported that "The high incidence of violent crime in some Indigenous communities, particularly in remote and rural regions, is exacerbated by factors not present in the broader Australian community...Dispossession, cultural fragmentation and marginalisation have contributed to the current crisis in which many Indigenous persons find themselves; high unemployment, poor health, low educational attainment and poverty have become endemic elements in Indigenous lives...".
Age-standardised figures in 2002 showed that 20% of Indigenous people were the victims of physical or threatened violence in the previous 12 months, while the rate for non-Indigenous people was 9%. In 2011–2012, the percentage of Aboriginal homicide offenders decreased to 11% and victims to 13%.
Family violence
The 2001 homicide study found that most occurred within the domestic setting.
In 2002 the Western Australia government looked into the issue and conducted an inquiry, known as the Gordon Inquiry after its lead investigator, Aboriginal magistrate Sue Gordon. The report, Putting the picture together: Inquiry into response by government agencies to complaints of family violence and child abuse in Aboriginal communities, said that "[t]he statistics paint a frightening picture of what could only be termed an 'epidemic' of family violence and child abuse in Aboriginal communities."
Family violence and sexual assault were at "crisis levels" in the Indigenous community in 2004, according to Monique Keel of the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Child abuse
The incidence of child abuse in Indigenous communities, including sexual abuse and neglect, is high in comparison with non-Indigenous communities. However, the data is limited, with most coming from child protection reports. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare gathered data for 2008–2009 on children aged 0–16 who were the subject of a confirmed child abuse report. It showed that Indigenous children accounted for 25% of the reports, despite making up only 4.6% of all Australian children; there were 37.7 reports per 1,000 of Indigenous children and 5 reports per 1,000 of non-Indigenous children, that is, Indigenous children were 7.5 times more likely to be the subject of a child abuse report.
A 2010 report showed that child sexual abuse was the least common form of abuse of Indigenous children, in contrast to media portrayals. Incidents of all types of child abuse in Indigenous communities may be under-reported, for several possible reasons, including fear of the authorities; denial; fears that the child may be taken away; and social pressure.
The 2007 Little Children are Sacred report cited evidence that "child maltreatment is disproportionately reported among poor families and, particularly in the case of neglect, is concentrated among the poorest of the poor", and that socio-economic disadvantage is "closely related with family violence, being both a cause of child abuse... and a form of child abuse and neglect in itself". The Indigenous community is significantly poorer than the non-Indigenous community in Australia.
The Australian Human Rights Commission's Social Justice Report 2008 said that, despite the likelihood of under-reporting, the 2005−2006 ABS statistics for confirmed child abuse did not appear to support the "allegations of endemic child abuse in NT remote communities that was the rationale for the Northern Territory National Emergency Response".
Alcohol use
There is a link between alcohol use disorder and violence in Indigenous communities, but the relationship is complex and it is not straightforward causality. Some of the "underlying issues associated with alcohol use and dependence [include] educational failure, family breakdown, the lack of meaningful employment and economic stagnation" (Homel, Lincoln & Herd 1999; Hazelhurst1997).
The 2001 homicide study reported that over four out of five Indigenous homicides involved either the victim or offender or both, drinking at the time of the incident.
A 2019 report shows a decline in the use of alcohol, with a greater abstention rate than among non-Indigenous people, as well as in tobacco use.
Illicit drug use
There is a link between illicit drugs and crime. The 2004 Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) annual report found that "37 percent of police detainees attributed some of their criminal activity to illicit drug use". However the relationship is complex. The drugs most often associated with violent crime (including domestic violence) in the whole Australian population are alcohol and methamphetamine.
Data from 2004–2007 showed that illicit drug use by Indigenous people over 14 years old was about twice as high as that of the general population. The data showed that 28% of Indigenous people aged 15 and above in non-remote areas had used illicit drugs in the previous 12 months, while the rate for non-Indigenous people in that age group in all areas was 13%. The illicit drugs most used by Indigenous people are cannabis, amphetamines, analgesics, and ecstasy. The increased usage may be related to the history of dispossession of Indigenous people and their subsequent socioeconomic disadvantage. Since the 1980s cannabis use by Indigenous people has increased substantially.
A 2006 study investigating drug use among Indigenous people in remote and rural communities showed that, while alcohol remained the primary concern, the "often heavy use of cannabis and increasing signs of amphetamine use" was having a negative impact on the communities. Drug offences constituted a very small proportion of charges in rural communities, but substance use primarily involved alcohol, cannabis, petrol and other solvents, and, increasingly, amphetamines.
A 2019 review reported that in 2016, 27% of Indigenous Australians used an illicit drug in the previous year, which was 1.8 times higher than for non-Indigenous Australians, at 15.3%. Cannabis use was especially prevalent: 19.4% had used cannabis in the last 12 months (1.9 times higher than non-Indigenous Australians, at 10.2%). 10.6% of Indigenous people had used a pharmaceutical for non-medical use (non-Indigenous 4.6 %) and 3.1% had used methamphetamines (non-Indigenous 1.4%). The relationship to crime was not included in this report.
The relationship between use of illicit drugs and crime, excluding possession of the drug, is not clear. Arrests of consumers (whole Australian population) still constituted around 80% of all arrests in 2009–10, and cannabis-related crimes accounted for 67%.
Victims of crime
Indigenous Australians are over-represented as victims of crime, in particular assault. A 2016 ABS report found that they are more likely to be victims of assault than non-Indigenous people by ratios of 2.6 (in New South Wales), 6 (in South Australia), and 5.9 (in Northern Territory). Indigenous women are highly over-represented in this figure, accounting for a higher proportion of assault victims than the non-Indigenous category.
Detainment and imprisonment
General statistics
In 2009, ABS figures showed that Indigenous people accounted for 25 percent of Australia's prison population. The age-standardised imprisonment rate for Indigenous people was 1,891 people per 100,000 of adult population, while for non-Indigenous people it was 136, which meant that the imprisonment rate for Indigenous people was 14 times higher than that of non-Indigenous people. The imprisonment rate for Indigenous people had increased from 1,248 per 100,000 of adult population in 2000, while it remained stable for non-Indigenous people. Indigenous men accounted for 92 percent of all Indigenous prisoners, while for non-Indigenous people the rate was 93 percent. 74 percent of Indigenous prisoners had been imprisoned previously, while the rate for non-Indigenous prisoners was 50 percent. Chris Graham of the National Indigenous Times calculated in 2008 that the imprisonment rate of Indigenous Australians was five times higher than that of black men in South Africa at the end of apartheid.
In 2014 in Western Australia, one in thirteen of all Aboriginal adult males was in prison. According to prison reform campaigner Gerry Georgatos, this is the highest jailing rate in the world.
The 2016 Australian Census recorded 798,400 Indigenous people (either Aboriginal Australians, Torres Strait Islander or both) in Australia, accounting for 3.3 percent of the population. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that the total Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in Australia aged 18 years and over as of June 2018 was approximately 2 percent, while Indigenous prisoners accounted for just over a quarter (28%) of the adult prison population.
Many sources report and discuss the over-representation of Indigenous Australians in Australian prisons.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics regularly publishes data sets regarding courts and prisons and victims. Series 4517 details imprisonment with tables 40, 41 and 42 specific to indigenous status. Series 4513 details courts and outcomes with tables 12-15 specific to indigenous status. Series 4510 details specifics of victims with tables 16-21 specific to indigenous status.
Health effects from incarceration
Negative health effects have been well researched and include mental health and well-being issues, grief and loss, violence and the need for family and community.
Social Justice Commissioner, Mick Gooda said in 2014 that over the previous 15 years, Indigenous incarceration had increased by 57%.
A large number of Indigenous Australians in imprisonment experience many problems, including malnutrition, disease, lack of opportunity, and erosion of their individual identity. Imprisonment can be a traumatic experience for any persons. There are many other factors associated with mental health effects while in custody, including psychological distress, life stresses, discrimination and domestic violence. A study has shown that 50% of males and 85% of Indigenous females reported medium or higher levels of psychological distress.
Deaths in custody
Death rates in prison are cause for concern. National reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people has been tainted with suspicion that the running of the criminal justice system was against Indigenous Australians. After a large number of Aboriginal deaths in custody in 1987, the Federal Government ordered the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The 1991 report of the same name found that the death rate in custody was similar for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, and that the high number of Indigenous deaths in custody was due to the disproportionate number of Indigenous people in prison custody relative to the number of non-Indigenous people—a factor of 29 according to a 1988 report by the Commission. RCIADIC concluded that the deaths were not caused by deliberate killing by police and prison officers, but that "glaring deficiencies existed in the standard of care afforded to many of the deceased". It reported that "Aboriginal people died in custody at the same rate as non-Aboriginal prisoners, but they were far more likely to be in prison than non-Aboriginal people", and that child removal was a "significant precursor to these high rates of imprisonment".
The issue resurfaced in 2004 when an Indigenous man, Mulrunji Doomadgee, died in custody in Palm Island, Queensland, an incident that caused riots on the island. The police officer who had custody of Doomadgee was charged with manslaughter, and was found not guilty in June 2007.
Women in prison
A 2017 report by the Human Rights Law Centre and Change the Record Coalition said that the lack of data on female prisoners and improvements which may flow from such data, led to higher rates of imprisonment. Indigenous women are 21 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous women, the rate of imprisonment has grown faster than any other segment of the prison population. The rate of female Indigenous imprisonment has increased 148% since the 1991 RCIDIAC deaths in custody report. Among the 2017 report's 13 recommendations are that state and territory governments should establish community-led prevention and early intervention programs to reduce violence against women; the removal of laws that disproportionately criminalise Indigenous women (such as imprisonment for non-payment of fines); and that a Custody Notification Schemes (CNS) should be set up in every jurisdiction.
The 2018 ALRC Pathways to Justice report said that "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women constitute 34% of the female prison population. In 2016, the rate of imprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women (464.8 per 100,000) was not only higher than that of non-Indigenous women (21.9 per 100,000), but was also higher than the rate of imprisonment of non-Indigenous men (291.1 per 100,000)". Also "[Indigenous] women were 21.2 times more likely to be in prison than non-Indigenous women" (Summary, p.8). The majority of female Indigenous prisoners have experienced physical or sexual abuse, and the rate of family violence is higher in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities than the general population. Added to this they have often suffered other trauma, housing insecurity, mental illness and other disabilities. The incarceration of women means that their own children (80% are mothers) and others who they may care for, may be harmed. One of the ALRC recommendations pertains to the amendment of fine enforcement procedures so they do not allow for imprisonment, as women are often in prison for this reason in some states, and Recommendation 11 pertains specifically to procedures relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.
Research into women in the criminal justice system in New South Wales commissioned by the Keeping Women Out of Prison Coalition (KWOOP) and published in March 2020, found that in the six years between March 2013 and June 2019, the number of incarcerated women had risen by 33%, to 946, and of these, almost a third were Indigenous. The overall growth of female prisoners was not due to a rise in crimes committed, but due to a 66% increase in the proportion of women on remand. The wait for bail of Indigenous women was between 34 and 58 days, but the majority of women were not given a sentence. The report also indicated that many more Indigenous than non-Indigenous women were sent to prison for similar crimes. The rate of imprisonment of all women had been rising, but for Indigenous women there had been a 49% increase since 2013, while for others the increase was 6%. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar said "urgent action" was needed.
Refusal of bail
New South Wales studies in 1976 and 2004 found that Aboriginal people were more likely to be refused bail than the general population, being instead detained on remand awaiting trial. This is despite provisions in the Bail Amendment (Repeat Offenders) Act 2002 (NSW) aiming to "increase access to bail for Aboriginal persons and Torres Strait Islanders".
Children in detention
In 2019, the Australian Medical Association reported that around 600 children below the age of 14 are prisoners in youth detention each year, and 70 percent of them are Aboriginal or Islander children. Overall, Indigenous children are around 5 percent of the total youth population in Australia, but make up about 60 percent of the children in prisons. The Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous peoples from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child had urged Australia to increase the age of criminal responsibility (10 years old in all states ), saying that children "should be detained only as a last resort, which is not the case today for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children".
In 2018 it was revealed that all the children in detention in the Northern Territory were Indigenous.
Prisoners with disabilities
In August 2018, a senior research officer from Human Rights Watch reported, "I visited 14 prisons across Australia, and heard story after story of Indigenous people with disabilities, whose lives have been cycles of abuse and imprisonment, without effective support".
Responses
Circle sentencing
Circle sentencing is a process that puts Aboriginal adult offenders before a circle of elders, members of the community, police and the judiciary, who decide on the sentence, rather than a traditional courtroom. This alternative method was first trialled in New South Wales in 2003, with more than 1,200 people completing the program by February 2019. The process is used for a range of offences, such as those relating to driving, drug and alcohol, but not for serious indictable offences such as murder or sexual assault. Informed by the restorative justice approach, circle sentencing seeks to integrate Aboriginal customary tradition into the legal process. The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) analysed the program in 2008, looking at 68 participants, compared to a control group who had been dealt with through the local court. It found that the program had failed to reduce recidivism and showed that the program had not addressed the root causes of the offenders' criminal behaviour. In 2019, Director Don Weatherburn said that the program had had limited resources at that time, and the program had since been improved to deal with the causes of offending. He was confident that the forthcoming new review, with results due in 2020, would show more positive results. Anecdotally, the circles had seen a huge reduction in reoffending.
Australian Law Reform Commission's "Pathways to Justice" Report
The Attorney-General for Australia commissioned the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) in October 2016 to examine the factors leading to the disproportionate numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australian prisons, and to look at ways of reforming legislation which might ameliorate this "national tragedy". The result of this in-depth enquiry was a report titled Pathways to Justice – Inquiry into the Incarceration Rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, which was received by the Attorney-General in December 2017 and tabled in Parliament on 28 March 2018. The report listed 13 recommendations, covering many aspects of the legal framework and police and justice procedures, including that fine default should not result in the imprisonment.
Focus on socio-economic factors
Reports on the rates of Indigenous crime have also focused on reducing risk by targeting the socio-economic factors that may contribute to such trends. Such factors include education, housing and the lack of employment opportunities for Indigenous Australians.
Police programs
As of 2020, various programs in New South Wales have been having a positive effect on keeping Indigenous people out of prison. In Bourke, a project called Maranguka Justice Reinvestment has police officers meeting with local Indigenous leaders each day, helping to identify at-risk youth, and includes giving free driving lessons to young people. There have been reductions in domestic violence and juvenile offending, and an increase in school retention. Project Walwaay in Dubbo sees an Aboriginal youth team help to build relationships and engage young people in activities on a Friday night, which is now the second-lowest day of crime, compared with being the busiest day before. The activities are also a pathway to the Indigenous Police Recruitment Delivery Our Way (IPROWD), an 18-week program run through TAFE NSW, which encourages young people to become police officers. This was first run in Dubbo in 2008 and has now been expanded to other locations across the state.
See also
Aboriginal Community Court
Australian Human Rights Commission
Crime in Australia
Crime in the Northern Territory
Crime in Western Australia
Don Dale Youth Detention Centre
Law enforcement in Australia
Law of Australia
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey
Race and crime
Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory
References
Cited sources
Berlyn, Claire; Bromfield, Leah. , Australian Institute of Family Studies, June 2010, Retrieved 11 November 2010. (HTML version, see here)
Uncited sources
Johnston, Elliot; Hinton, Martin; Rigney, Daryle. (eds.). Indigenous Australians and the Law, Routledge-Cavendish, 1997, 2008 (second edition). .
"Law and Justice Fact Sheet", ReconciliACTION, 15 October 2007. Archived on 11 November 2010.
Further reading
Books and documents
Barclay, Elaine (2007). Crime in Rural Australia, Federation Press..
Levinson, David (2002). Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment (vol 1), Berkshire Publishing Group, pp. 86, 90. .
Mukherjee, Satyanshu Kumar; Graycar, Adam. (1997). Crime and Justice in Australia, 1997, Hawkins Press, p 48. .
Willis, Matthew; Moore, John-Patrick. , Australian Institute of Criminology, August 2008. Research and Public Policy Series No. 90. See accompanying webpage here, archived 14 November 2010.
Journal articles
Goodall, Heather. "Constructing a Riot: Television News and Aborigines", Media Information Australia 68: 70–77, May 1993.
Borland, Jeff; Hunter, Boyd. "Does Crime Affect Employment Status? The Case of Indigenous Australians", Economica 67 (265): 123–144, August 2003
Eversole, Robyn; Routh, Richard; Ridgeway, Leon. , Environment & Urbanization 16 (2): 73–81, October 2004. Archived on 11 November 2010. See abstract and Google Books version.
Hunter, Boyd. , Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, 2001.
Quinlan, Frank. "Sentencing laws will further alienate indigenous Australians", Eureka Street, volume 16, issue 14, 16 October 2006, accessed 11 November 2010. , Eureka Street, volume 16, issue 14, 16 October 2006. Archived on 11 November 2010.
Radio (transcripts)
"Aborigines and the Criminal Justice System", The Law Report, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 25 April 2000. Archived on 14 November 2010.
McDonald, Timothy. "Violent crime more likely in Qld, NSW Indigenous communities", PM, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 6 June 2007. Archived on 14 November 2010.
Statistics
Web
Fitzgerald, Jacqueline; Weatherburn, Don. , NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, December 2001.
National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee. .
"Investing in Indigenous youth and communities to prevent crime", transcript of the speech by Tom Calma delivered to the Australian Institute of Criminology, 31 August 2009. speech by Tom Calma.
, Child Abuse Prevention Issues (Australian Institute of Family Studies), issue 19, spring 2003. For a HTML version, see archived 11 November 2010.
Crime in Australia
Indigenous Australian culture
Indigenous Australian politics
Race and crime
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The Little Sur River is a long river on the Central Coast of California. The river and its main tributary, the South Fork, drain a watershed of about of the Big Sur area, a thinly settled region of the Central California coast where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The South Fork and the North Fork both have their headwaters in the Ventana Wilderness, straddling Mount Pico Blanco. Portions west of the national forest and Old Coast Road lie within the El Sur Ranch. Some portions of the North Fork are on land owned by Granite Rock Company of Watsonville, California, which has owned the mineral rights to on Mount Pico Blanco since 1963. The North and South forks converge about from the coast where the river enters the Pacific Ocean.
The river's steep canyons and high chaparral-covered ridges are host to a number of rare species including the Santa Lucia Fir, Dudley's lousewort, and virgin stands of old-growth redwood.
Watershed
Protections
In 1973 the California State Legislature, recognizing the river's "extraordinary scenic, fishery, wildlife, (and) outdoor recreational values" and to protect its "free-flowing and wild status," added the river to the California Protected Waterways System. Responding to the state's request, in 1981 Monterey County added the river to its Protected Waterways Management Plan and encouraged the state in its Big Sur Coast Land Use Plan to designate the Little Sur area as a "coastal resource of national significance." The mouth of the river is protected because it is surrounded by private land, preventing public access.
Wildlife
The Little Sur River watershed provides habitat for mountain lion, bear, deer, fox, coyotes and wild boars. The upstream river canyon is characteristic of the Ventana Wilderness region: steep-sided, sharp-crested ridges separating valleys. Because the upper reaches of the Little Sur River watershed is entirely within the Ventana Wilderness, much of the river is in pristine condition. The California Department of Fish and Game says the river is the "most important spawning stream for steelhead" on the Central Coast. and that it "is one of the best steelhead streams in the county." The Little Sur River is a key habitat within the Central California steelhead distinct population segment which is listed as threatened.
A U.S. fisheries service report estimates that the number of trout in the entire south-central coast area—including the Pajaro River, Salinas River, Carmel River, Big Sur River, and Little Sur River—have dwindled from about 4,750 fish in 1965 to about 800 in 2005. The total number of steelhead in the Little Sur River was estimated at less than 100 in 1991.
Vegetation
The watershed is populated with coastal redwood, Douglas fir, western sycamore, bay laurel, bigleaf maple, and tanbark oak. Mixed in with the redwood and Douglas fir is a riparian habitat containing alder, poison oak, and thimbleberry. The upper slopes are usually a mix of chaparral, covered by coyote bush, ceanothus, chamise, manzanita, sagebrush, and bush lupine. On a few upper slopes may be found patches of open grassland dotted with black oak, canyon live oak, and tanbark oak favored by the early Esselen inhabitants.
The Little Sur River watershed contains stands of some of the most impressive uncut coastal redwood trees in the entire Big Sur area, including specimens over tall. It also contains the largest and tallest stands of Douglas fir on the Central Coast, up to in height. A stand of the rare Santa Lucia fir, described as "the rarest and most unusual fir in North America," are found on Skinner's Ridge, east of Pico Blanco Boy Scout camp.
Geology
The river canyon is deep and narrow, and even in the summer sunshine only reaches the canyon bottom for a few hours. The land is mostly steep, rocky, semi-arid except for the narrow canyons, and inaccessible. The upstream river canyon is characteristic of the Ventana Wilderness region: steep-sided, sharp-crested ridges separating valleys. Upstream from the Boy Scout camp are narrow gorges, waterfalls, and a few large pools.
Several northwest-trending faults cut across the Little Sur River drainage: the Sur, the Palo Colorado, and the Church Creek faults. The river flows mostly west for much of its length, unlike other rivers in the region which tend to flow to the northwest or southeast. Near Camp Pico Blanco, the river meets the Palo Colorado fault and follows it northwesterly for about , before turning west towards the Pacific Ocean. The lower length of the South Fork follows the Sur fault zone until it meets the North Fork. West of the Sur fault the earth is composed of Franciscan Assemblage rocks, some exposed serpentine, and overlying sandstone. Most of the Little Sur River geology is to the east of the Sur fault. This area is marked by deep canyons cut through granitic and metamorphic rocks of the Salinian Block. Upstream from the Boy Scout camp the gorges are full of mica schist and gneiss (metamorphosed sedimentary rocks), and granodiorite, quartz monzonite, and quartz diorite (granitic rocks). At the river's mouth are some of the largest sand dunes on the Big Sur coast.
The north and south forks of the Little Sur River straddle either side of Mount Pico Blanco, Spanish for "White Peak." It is topped by a distinctive white limestone cap, visible from California's Highway 1. The native Esselen people revered the peak as a sacred mountain from which all life originated. They believed that three creatures—the eagle, coyote and the hummingbird—rode out the Great Flood atop the mountain and went on to create the world.
Weather
The Little Sur River basin climate, protected for the most part from coastal fog by Pico Blanco, is characterized by hot, dry summers and rainy, mild winters. Annual temperatures average to . Annual precipitation ranges from , with a pronounced summer drought. This interior is hotter than the coastal region and receives less moisture from fog in summer. Severe spring rains have caused mud slides on steep slopes above roads near the hair-pin turns, which briefly closed the road into the Pico Blanco Boy Scout camp during the spring of 1967 and 1969.
Tributaries
The river originates in the area of the Ventana Double Cone and flows to the Pacific Ocean. The upper part of the river's watershed is in the Ventana Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest. The rest, mostly near the coast, is privately owned. Precipitation increases with altitude at Big Sur. Higher elevations can receive over per year, about higher than lower areas.
The main river, locally known as the North Fork, is in a bowl-shaped watershed, fed by several creeks and surrounded by Launtz Ridge and Pico Blanco () to the west, Devil's Peak () to the north, Uncle Sam Mountain () to the east, and Ventana Double Cone () to the southeast. The North Fork flows mostly over granite bedrock. Upstream tributaries include Skinners Creek, Ventana Creek, Comings Creek, and Puerto Suelo Creek. A one-armed man named Vogler built a cabin east of Devil's Peak in the 1880s, later purchased by the Comings family, for whom the location and creek are named today. (They continued to use the cabin until the early 1950s.)
The South Fork of the river flows over granite bedrock, with portions of limestone and marble bedrock. The river has eroded the limestone and marble such that it travels underground in several locations. Tributaries on the South Fork include Rocky Creek, Turner Creek, Bixby Creek, Mill Creek, and Lachance Creek, many of them named for former homesteaders like Antare P. Lachance. Bixby Creek was the site of a landing built to transfer tanbark via cable to ships anchored offshore. The South Fork is unrestricted by any man-made dams, but an impassable waterfall about high upstream prevents steelhead from migrating further.
Boy Scout camp
Camp Pico Blanco is at elevation on the North Fork. Upstream tributaries include Jackson Creek, Pine Creek, Puerto Suelo Creek, and Comings Creek. A small creek enters the Little Sur River via a waterfall at the location of the seasonal reservoir in the camp proper. The immediate camp environment consists of seven distinct biotic habitats: coast redwood/mixed evergreen forest, white alder riparian woodland, herbaceous vegetation, aquatic habitat, bare alluvium, bare ground, and Sur Complex bedrock. The camp is accessed via the narrow and winding Palo Colorado Road, from the coast, which was closed due to the 2017 Soberanes fire, and remains closed. Some of the redwoods in the vicinity of the camp were planted between 1910 and 1921.
Dam
There is a seasonal high concrete flash board dam on the North Fork of the river in the Camp Pico Blanco. Built in 1953, it creates a small recreational reservoir about in size. In 2002, the California Department of Fish & Game attempted to stop the Monterey Bay Area Council from using the dam. After intervention by Rep. Sam Farr and Senator Bruce McPherson, the Fish and Game retreated from preventing the council from filling the dam, but stipulated that certain regulations must be adhered to.
The National Marine Fisheries Service discovered shortly afterward that the Council appeared to have filled the dam in violation of these regulations, "dewatering" the river below the dam and killing at least 30 threatened steelhead trout. The council could have been subject to fines of up to $360,000. The council avoided paying a fine by building a $1 million custom fish ladder designed by Swanson Hydrology + Geomorphology. Don Chapin Company, a long-time supporter of the Monterey Bay Area Council, was the honoree at the 2006 dinner at which it was recognized for donating the cost of constructing the fish ladder. California State Representative Sam Farr's father helped build the camp, and Farr attended the camp as a boy.
Habitat for endangered species
In 1895, a fishing journal reported that "there are plenty of large fish in the stream, and there are several fine streams running into the North Fork, all full of California trout." A 1903 state report similarly reported that "The Big and Little Sur Rivers... are noted for trout-fishing."
A 1965 report said the stream contained about of prime habitat for the threatened steelhead. In 2002, Fish and Game staff surveyed the Little Sur River in the vicinity of the Camp Pico Blanco and found "numerous" steelhead fry and fingerlings. They described the river as "probably the most productive steelhead river south of the San Francisco Bay at this time." The Little Sur River is considered by the California Department of Fish and Game to be the "most important spawning stream for steelhead" on the Central Coast and "one of the best steelhead streams in the county."
As of 2011, fishing is limited to the fourth Saturday each month from May through October 31 each year. Only artificial lures with barbless hooks may be used.
Other at risk species found in the river's riparian corridor include the California red-legged frog (Federally threatened, California Species of Concern), western pond turtle(California Species of Concern), foothill yellow-legged frog (California Species of Concern), and the Coastal Range newt (California Species of Concern).
Rare vegetation and wildlife
The area was first surveyed in 1905 when the region was set aside as part of the Monterey Forest Preserve. That survey noted that the redwoods achieved their maximum development along the Little Sur River. The Little Sur River watershed contains stands of some of the most impressive uncut coastal redwood trees in the entire Big Sur area, including specimens over tall. It also contains the largest and tallest stands of Douglas fir on the Central Coast, up to in height. A stand of the rare Santa Lucia fir, described as "the rarest and most unusual fir in North America," are found on Skinner's Ridge, east of the Camp Pico Blanco. There are also a few ponderosa pine in the lower canyon.
The North Fork of the Little Sur River supports the largest known population found on public lands of the rare Dudley's lousewort. Endemic to redwood forests, fewer than 10 known locations are known to support the plant.
Fire impact
Fire is an integral part of the Little Sur River landscape. Upper elevations are typically covered by chaparral. In one of the first recorded fires in 1894, most of what is now the Monterey Ranger District, including the Little Sur River watershed, was burned by a fire that was unchecked for weeks. In October, 1905 another fire raged for more than a month, consuming all of the Palo Colorado and Pico Blanco area. The Molera Fire in 1972 burned a considerable portion of the watershed, and in August, 1977, the Marble-Cone Fire burned the entire area. This was repeated in 2008 when the Basin Complex fire involved the entire watershed. In 2016, the Soberanes Fire once again burned through almost the entire Little Sur River watershed with the exception of areas west of the Old Coast Road.
History
The Little Sur River area has always been sparsely occupied. The land is mostly steep, rocky, semi-arid except for the narrow canyons, and inaccessible, making long-term habitation a challenge.
Esselen tribe
The area was first occupied by the Esselen American Indians who followed local food sources seasonally, living near the coast in winter, where they harvested rich stocks of mussels, abalone and other sea life. In the summer and fall they move inland to harvest acorns gathered from the black oak, canyon live oak and tanbark oak, primarily on upper slopes in areas outside the current camp's location. A large boulder with a dozen or more deep mortar bowls worn into it, known as a bedrock mortar, is located in Apple Tree Camp on the southwest slope of Devil's Peak, north of Camp Pico Blanco. The holes were hollowed out by Indians who used it to grind the acorns into flour. Other mortar rocks have also been found within the Boy Scout camp at campsites 3 and 7, and slightly upstream from campsite 12, while a fourth is found on a large rock in the river, originally above the river, between campsites 3 and 4.
Pico Blanco, which splits the north and south forks of the river, was sacred in the native traditions of the Rumsien and the Esselen, who revered the mountain as a sacred place from which all life originated. The Spanish mission system led to the virtual destruction of the Indian population. Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroebersuggests a 1770 population for the Esselen of 500. Sherburne F. Cook raises this estimate to 750. A more recent calculation based on mission baptism records and population density is that they numbered 1,185–1,285.
European contact
On June 14, 1771, Father Junípero Serra founded Mission San Antonio de Padua near the current town of Jolon. By about 1822, much of the native Indian population had been forced into the Spanish mission system, and most of the interior villages within the current Los Padres National Forest were uninhabited. Virtually all of the Esselen were baptized and relocated to Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in present-day Carmel, California, where many died from disease, demoralization, poor food, and overwork. The last baptism of an Esselen native was recorded in 1808, and there is evidence that some members may have avoided control of the Spanish mission by escaping into the relatively inaccessible upper reaches of the Carmel and Arroyo Seco Rivers' watershed.
European settlement
Along with the rest of California, Big Sur became part of Mexico when it gained independence from Spain in 1821. On July 30, 1834, Mexican governor José Figueroa conveyed the Rancho El Sur land grant to Juan Bautista Alvarado. Alvarado later traded his Rancho El Sur to his uncle by marriage, Captain John B.R. Cooper, in exchange for Rancho Bolsa del Potrero y Moro Cojo.
After California revolted against Mexican rule and became a U.S. state, a few hardy pioneer homesteaders settled in the Big Sur region, drawn by the promise of free 160 acre (0.6 km2) parcels. They filed United States government patents as early as 1891. These settlers included William F. Notley, who homesteaded at the mouth of Palo Colorado Canyon in 1891.
He began harvesting tanoak bark from the canyon, a lucrative source of income at the time. The bark was used to manufacture tannic acid, necessary to the growing leather tanning industry located in Santa Cruz, about to the north. Notley constructed a landing at the mouth of the Palo Colorado River like that at Bixby Landing to the south. The tanbark was harvested from the isolated trees inland, corded, brought out by mule back or using wooden sleds, and loaded by cable onto waiting vessels anchored offshore at Notley's Landing. A point on the Palo Colorado Road is still nicknamed "The Hoist" because of the very steep road which required wagon-loads of tanbark and lumber to be hoisted by block and tackle hitched to oxen. The old block and tackle on a beam is still mounted between mailboxes.
Notley's Landing was used to ship the tan bark north, and a small village prospered at that spot from 1898 to 1907. In 1889, as much as 50,000 cords of tanbark were hauled out from the Little Sur River and Big Sur River watersheds. Redwood harvesting was limited by the rugged terrain and difficulty in transporting the lumber to market. Near the start of the 20th century, the tan oak trees were becoming seriously depleted, which slowly led to the demise of the industries they had created.
A one-armed man named Vogler built a cabin east of Devil's Peak in the 1880s, later purchased by the Comings family, for whom the location and creek are named today. (They continued to use the cabin until the early 1950s.) Other early homesteaders in the Palo Colorado Canyon region included Thomas W. Allen, 1891, Isaac N. Swetnam, 1894, Harry E. Morton, 1896, Samuel L. Trotter, 1901, Abijah C. Robbins, 1901, and Antare P. Lachance, 1904. Swetnam bought the Notley home at the mouth of Palo Colorado Canyon and also constructed a small cabin on the Little Sur River at the site of the future Pico Blanco camp.
Alfred K. Clark built a home on the south fork of the Little Sur River around the turn of the century. He filed a land patent for on June 30, 1906. Clark searched for silver unsuccessfully on his property for many years. Before he died, he told his neighbor and friend Al Geer that he had found a cavern decorated with "elephants with long shaggy hair and curly teeth" and "cats with long sharp teeth."
Idlewild Resort
A travel brochure published in 1890 describes the "embryo Saratoga Springs ... owned by Mr. Keleher, who discovered them, and Dr. S. M. Archer" of Monterey County Hospital. It states that the springs "are situated nearly fifty feet above the river channel" and reported that, "The ocean, with a beautiful sandy beach, is but two miles distant." In 1893, the Monterey Cypress reported on a visitor who caught a 3 1/2 pound trout in front of Keleher's home on the river.
Charles Howland, who drove the mail stage between Monterey and Big Sur, built the Idlewild Hotel on the Old Coast Road where it meets the Little Sur River in about 1900. He and his wife offered large tents furnished with stove, cooking utensils, dishes, cots, and mattresses for $3.00 per week. A stage ran from the Everett House in Monterey to the hotel on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays every morning beginning on August 3, 1901. Rooms were $1.50 per day. The Idlewild and the Pfeiffer Ranch Resort were only two hotels in the Big Sur region hosting guests in 1905.
William T. Mitchell bought the resort in about 1909. He guaranteed guests their full limit of trout from the Little Sur River, bragging that children could catch fish with bent pin hooks. Reports included mention of guests taking advantage of a hot springs upstream from the hotel. W. T. Mitchell sold the hotel back to its original owners, Charles Howland and his wife, in June 1911.
The hotel was near John Bautista Henry Cooper's Rancho El Sur. When he died in 1899, his wife Martha Brawley Cooper received of his estate. Their children John B.R. Cooper, Alfred, Alice, and Abelardo each inherited a share of the land. On April 9, 1913, she acquired the land formerly owned by Charles and Hattie Howland along the Little Sur River in a Sheriff's sale for $6,590.60 (or about $ today). When Alfred died in an auto accident on September 2, 1913, his two siblings Abelardo and Alice assigned their interest in his estate including the Rancho to their mother, Martha. The additional land apparently included the location of the Idlewild Hotel.
During the next season, the Howlands moved the Idlewild Hotel to a different location along the Little Sur River. In a series of competing ads beginning on May 2, 1914, Martha Cooper placed a notice in the Monterey Daily Express that the "summer resort on the Little Sur River known as 'Idlewild' is permanently closed to the public." Immediately below that notice, Charles Howland "former owner of Idlewild", ran a larger ad for Idlewild's "new camp... Same county, same streams, near same old spot." Cooper continued to run an ad notifying the public that the Idlewild resort was closed through the end of 1918. Howland similarly ran his ad alongside hers for much of the same period of time. Cooper offered a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone trespassing on the Cooper land. In a report in The Californian on July 1, 1919, Charles Howland is once again named as the owner of the Idlewild. On July 25, 1919, Mignnnette Myers Gruit described the "Hitchcock camp" at Camp Idlewild, entertainment, and a large number of visitors. The of land became the subject of a legal dispute between the Howlands and their partners, John and Anna Brown. A judge finally ruled that they should split the land.
Early trails and roads
José Castro documented the first trail from Monterey to Palo Colorado Canyon in 1853, when he filed a map of the rancho. A trail was in use from Palo Colorado Canyon to Mill Creek (present-day Bixby Canyon) by about 1855. The area was very isolated and only the sturdiest and most self-sufficient settlers stayed. In 1870, Charles Henry Bixby and his father hired men to improve the track and constructed the first wagon road including 23 bridges from the Carmel Mission to Bixby Creek.
Bixby later partnered with William B. Post to extend the road inland, around Bixby Canyon and up Cerro Hill to the junction of the north and south forks of the Little Sur River, and thence south to the Post Ranch on the Rancho El Sur. The trip was over a rough and dangerous track. The single-lane road was closed in winter when it became impassable. Coast residents could receive supplies via a hazardous landing by boat from Monterey or San Francisco. The road was gradually improved, including grading of the road up Cerro Hill from the coast to the Little Sur River. By 1920, the trip from Carmel in a light spring wagon pulled by two horses could be completed in about 11 hours. A lumber wagon pulled by four horses could make the trip in 13 hours. A side road into Palo Colorado Canyon was in place by 1900.
Prior to the completion of the two-lane Carmel-San Simeon Highway in 1937, the California coast south of Carmel and north of San Simeon was one of the most remote regions in the state, rivaling nearly any other region in the United States for its difficult access.
The United States Army Corps of Engineers began building a road from the end of Palo Colorado Road in 1950 from a location known as "The Hoist" to Bottcher's Gap (), the site of former homesteader John Bottcher's cabin in 1885–86. The road leaving Bottcher's Gap traverses extremely steep terrain, necessitating four narrow switchbacks. The road reached the Little Sur River in the vicinity of the camp in the summer of 1951. The council turned over the road from The Hoist to Bottcher's Gap to Monterey County in 1958. In 1963, the Council Executive estimated that buying the land at that time would cost the council over $1 million, or nearly $ in today's dollars.
National forest creation
In October, 1905 the land that now makes up the Los Padres National Forest, including the South Fork and portions of the upper reaches of the North Fork of the Little Sur River watershed, were withdrawn from public settlement by the United States Land Office, although current landholders were allowed to retain their property. In January 1908, 39 sections of land, totaling , were added to the Monterey National Forest by President Theodore Roosevelt in a presidential proclamation. Several tanning companies and some homesteaders retained ownership of land within the area which were not purchased by the government.
By 1916 the Kron Tanning Company of Santa Cruz and the Eberhard Tanning Company of Santa Clara had acquired most of the acreage along the Little Sur River from the original owners. Interest in preserving the abundant growth of redwoods in the area prompted newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst to purchase the entire acreage. On November 18, 1921, the Hearst Sunical Land and Packing Company paid approximately $50,000 to buy the land from the tanning companies.
References
Further reading
The Trust for Public Land: Little Sur River
Ventana Wilderness Alliance: Little Sur River
Rivers of Monterey County, California
Santa Lucia Range
Monterey Ranger District, Los Padres National Forest
Rivers of Northern California
Big Sur
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Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, FBA (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English moral philosopher. His publications include Problems of the Self (1973), Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), Shame and Necessity (1993), and Truth and Truthfulness (2002). He was knighted in 1999.
As Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Deutsch Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, Williams became known for his efforts to reorient the study of moral philosophy to psychology, history, and in particular to the Greeks. Described by Colin McGinn as an "analytical philosopher with the soul of a general humanist," he was sceptical about attempts to create a foundation for moral philosophy. Martha Nussbaum wrote that he demanded of philosophy that it "come to terms with, and contain, the difficulty and complexity of human life."
Williams was a strong supporter of women in academia; according to Nussbaum, he was "as close to being a feminist as a powerful man of his generation could be." He was also famously sharp in conversation. Gilbert Ryle, one of Williams's mentors at Oxford, said that he "understands what you're going to say better than you understand it yourself, and sees all the possible objections to it, and all the possible answers to all the possible objections, before you've got to the end of your own sentence."
Life
Early life and education
Williams was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, a suburb of Southend, Essex, to Hilda Amy Williams, née Day, a personal assistant, and Owen Pasley Denny Williams, chief maintenance surveyor for the Ministry of Works. He was educated at Chigwell School, an independent school, where he first discovered philosophy. Reading D. H. Lawrence led him to ethics and the problems of the self. In his first book, Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (1972), he quoted with approval Lawrence's advice to "[f]ind your deepest impulse, and follow that."
Awarded a scholarship to Oxford, Williams read Greats (pure Classics followed by Ancient History and philosophy) at Balliol. Among his influences at Oxford were W. S. Watt, Russell Meiggs, R. M. Hare, Elizabeth Anscombe, Eric Dodds, Eduard Fraenkel, David Pears and Gilbert Ryle. He shone in the first part of the course, the pure classics (being particularly fond of writing Latin verses in the style of Ovid) and graduated in 1951 with a congratulatory first in the second part of the course and a prize fellowship at All Souls.
After Oxford, Williams spent his two-year national service flying Spitfires in Canada for the Royal Air Force. While on leave in New York, he became close to Shirley Brittain Catlin (born 1930), daughter of the novelist Vera Brittain and the political scientist George Catlin. They had already been friends at Oxford. Catlin had moved to New York to study economics at Columbia University on a Fulbright scholarship.
Williams returned to England to take up his fellowship at All Souls and in 1954 became a fellow at New College, Oxford, a position he held until 1959. He and Catlin continued seeing each other. She began working for the Daily Mirror and sought election as a Labour MP. Williams, also a member of the Labour Party, helped her with the 1954 by-election in Harwich in which she was an unsuccessful candidate.
First marriage, London
Williams and Catlin were married in London in July 1955 at St James's, Spanish Place, near Marylebone High Street, followed by a honeymoon in Lesbos, Greece.
The couple moved into a very basic ground-floor apartment in London, on Clarendon Road, Notting Hill. Given how hard it was to find decent housing, they decided instead to share with Helge Rubinstein and her husband, the literary agent Hilary Rubinstein, who at the time was working for his uncle, Victor Gollancz. In 1955 the four of them bought a four-storey, seven-bedroom house in Phillimore Place, Kensington, for £6,800, a home they lived in together for 14 years. Williams described it as one of the happiest periods of his life.
In 1958, Williams spent a term teaching at the University of Ghana in Legon. When he returned to England in 1959, he was appointed lecturer in philosophy at University College London. In 1961, after four miscarriages in four years, Shirley Williams gave birth to their daughter, Rebecca.
Williams was a visiting professor at Princeton University in 1963, and was appointed Professor of Philosophy at Bedford College, London, in 1964. His wife was elected to parliament that year as the Labour member for Hitchin in Hertfordshire. The Sunday Times described the couple two years later as "the New Left at its most able, most generous, and sometimes most eccentric." Andy Beckett wrote that they "entertained refugees from eastern Europe and politicians from Africa, and drank sherry in noteworthy quantities." Shirley Williams became a junior minister and, in 1971, Shadow Home Secretary. Several newspapers saw her as a future prime minister. She went on to co-found a new centrist party in 1981, the Social Democratic Party; Williams left the Labour Party to join the SDP, although he later returned to Labour.
Cambridge, second marriage
In 1967, at the age of 38, Williams became the Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of King's College.
According to Jane O'Grady, Williams was central to the decision by King's in 1972 to admit women, one of the first three all-male Oxbridge undergraduate colleges to do so. In both his first and second marriages, he supported his wives in their careers and helped with the children more than was common for men at the time. In the 1970s, when Nussbaum's thesis supervisor, G. E. L. Owen, was harassing female students, and she decided nevertheless to support him, Williams told her, during a walk along the backs at Cambridge: "[Y]ou know, there is a price you are paying for this support and encouragement. Your dignity is being held hostage. You really don't have to put up with this."
Shirley Williams's political career (the House of Commons regularly sat until 10 pm) meant that the couple spent a lot of time apart. They bought a house in Furneux Pelham, Hertfordshire, near the border with south Cambridgeshire, while she lived in Phillimore Place during the week to be close to the Houses of Parliament. Sunday was often the only day they were together. The differences in their personal values – he was an atheist, she a Catholic – placed a further strain on their relationship. It reached breaking point in 1970 when Williams formed a relationship with Patricia Law Skinner, a commissioning editor for Cambridge University Press and wife of the historian Quentin Skinner. She had approached Williams to write the opposing view of utilitarianism for Utilitarianism: For and Against with J. J. C. Smart (1973), and they had fallen in love.
Williams and Skinner began living together in 1971. He obtained a divorce in 1974 (at Shirley Williams' request, the marriage was later annulled). Patricia Williams married him that year, and the couple went on to have two sons, Jacob in 1975 and Jonathan in 1980. Shirley Williams married the political scientist Richard Neustadt in 1987.
Berkeley, Oxford
In 1979 Williams was elected Provost of King's, a position he held until 1987. He spent a semester in 1986 at the University of California, Berkeley as Mills Visiting Professor and in 1988 left England to become Monroe Deutsch Professor of Philosophy there, announcing to the media that he was leaving as part of the "brain drain" of British academics to America. He was also Sather Professor of Classical Literature at Berkeley in 1989; Shame and Necessity (1995) grew out of his six Sather lectures.
Williams returned to England in 1990 as White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford and fellow of Corpus Christi. His sons had been "at sea" in California, he said, not knowing what was expected of them, and he had been unable to help. He regretted having made his departure from England so public; he had been persuaded to do so to highlight Britain's relatively low academic salaries. When he retired in 1996, he took up a fellowship again at All Souls.
Royal commissions, committees
Williams served on several royal commissions and government committees: the Public Schools Commission (1965–1970), drug abuse (1971), gambling (1976–1978), the Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship (1979), and the Commission on Social Justice (1993–1994). "I did all the major vices," he said. While on the gambling commission, one of his recommendations, ignored at the time, was for a national lottery. (John Major's government introduced one in 1994.)
Mary Warnock described Williams's report on pornography in 1979, as chair of the Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship, as "agreeable, actually compulsive to read." It relied on a "harm condition" that "no conduct should be suppressed by law unless it can be shown to harm someone," and concluded that so long as children were protected from pornography, adults should be free to read and watch it as they see fit. The report rejected the view that pornography tends to cause sexual offences. Two cases in particular were highlighted, the Moors Murders and the Cambridge Rapist, where the influence of pornography had been discussed during the trials. The report argued that both cases appeared to be "more consistent with pre-existing traits being reflected both in a choice of reading matter and in the acts committed against others."
Opera
Williams enjoyed opera from an early age, particularly Mozart and Wagner. Patricia Williams writes that he attended performances of the Carl Rosa Company and Sadler's Wells as a teenager. In an essay on Wagner, he described having been reduced to a "virtually uncontrollable state" during a performance by Jon Vickers as Tristan at Covent Garden. He served on the board of the English National Opera from 1968 to 1986, and wrote an entry, "The Nature of Opera," for The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. A collection of his essays, On Opera, was published posthumously in 2006, edited by Patricia Williams.
Honours and death
Williams became a member of the Institut international de philosophie in 1969, a fellow of the British Academy in 1971 and an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1983. The following year he was made a syndic of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and later the chair. In 1993 he was elected to a fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts, and in 1999 he was knighted. Several universities awarded him honorary doctorates, including Yale and Harvard.
Williams died of heart failure on 10 June 2003 while on holiday in Rome; he had been diagnosed in 1999 with multiple myeloma, a form of cancer. He was survived by his wife, their two sons, and his first child, Rebecca. He was cremated in Rome.
Writing
Approach to ethics
A. W. Moore writes that Williams' work lies within the analytic tradition, although less typical of it "in its breadth, in its erudition, and above all in its profound humanity":
Although he was never a vigorous apologist for that tradition, he always maintained the standards of clarity and rigour which it prizes, and his work is a model of all that is best in the tradition. It is brilliant, deep, and imaginative. It is also extraordinarily tight. There cannot be many critics of his work who have not thought of some objection to what he says, only to find, on looking for a relevant quotation to turn into a target, that Williams carefully presents his views in a way that precisely anticipates the objection.
Williams did not produce any ethical theory or system; several commentators noted, unfairly in the view of his supporters, that he was largely a critic. Moore writes that Williams was unaffected by this criticism: "He simply refused to allow philosophical system-building to eclipse the subtlety and variety of human ethical experience." He equated ethical theories with "a tidiness, a systematicity, and an economy of ideas," writes Moore, that were not up to describing human lives and motives. Williams tried not to lose touch "with the real concerns that animate our ordinary ethical experience," unlike much of the "arid, ahistorical, second-order" debates about ethics in philosophy departments.
In his first book, Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (1972), Williams wrote that whereas "most moral philosophy at most times has been empty and boring ... [c]ontemporary moral philosophy has found an original way of being boring, which is by not discussing moral issues at all." He argued that the study of ethics should be vital, compelling and difficult, and he sought an approach that was accountable to psychology and history.
Williams was not an ethical realist, holding that unlike scientific knowledge, which can approach an "absolute conception of reality," an ethical judgment rests on a point of view. He argued that the "thick" ethical concepts, such as kindness and cruelty, express a "union of fact and value." The idea that our values are not "in the world" was liberating: "[A] radical form of freedom may be found in the fact that we cannot be forced by the world to accept one set of values rather than another" said Williams.
Williams frequently emphasised what he saw as the ways in which luck pervades ethical life. He coined and developed the term moral luck, and illustrated the idea of moral luck via a number of enormously influential examples. One of Williams's famous examples of moral luck concerns the painter Paul Gauguin's decision to move to Tahiti.
Critique of Kant
Williams's work throughout the 1970s and 1980s, in Morality: An Introduction to Ethics (1972), Problems of the Self (1973), Utilitarianism: For and Against with J. J. C. Smart (1973), Moral Luck (1981) and Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), outlined his attacks on the twin pillars of ethics: utilitarianism and the moral philosophy of the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Martha Nussbaum wrote that his work "denounced the trivial and evasive way in which moral philosophy was being practised in England under the aegis of those two dominant theories." "Both theories simplified the moral life," she wrote, "neglecting emotions and personal attachments and how sheer luck shapes our choices." (Williams said in 1996: "Roughly, if it isn't about obligation or consequences, it doesn't count.")
Kant's Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785) expounded a moral system based on the categorical imperative, one formulation of which is: "Act only according to that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law." Rational agents must act on "principles of pure rational agency," writes Moore; that is, principles that regulate all rational agents. But Williams distinguished between thinking and acting. To think rationally is to think in a way compatible with belief in the truth, and "what it takes for one to believe the truth is the same as what it takes for anyone else to believe the truth," writes Moore. But one can act rationally by satisfying one's own desires (internal reasons for action), and what it takes to do that may not be what it takes for anyone else to satisfy theirs. Kant's approach to treating thinking and acting alike is wrong, according to Williams.
Williams argued that Kant had given the "purest, deepest and most thorough representation of morality," but that the "honourable instincts of Kantianism to defend the individuality of individuals against the agglomerative indifference of Utilitarianism" may not be effective against the Kantian "abstract character of persons as moral agents." We should not be expected to act as though we are not who we are in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Critique of utilitarianism
Williams set out the case against utilitarianism – a consequentialist position the simplest version of which is that actions are right only insofar as they promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number – in Utilitarianism: For and Against (1973) with J. J. C. Smart. One of the book's thought experiments involves Jim, a botanist doing research in a South American country led by a brutal dictator. Jim finds himself in a small town facing 20 captured Indian rebels. The captain who has arrested them says that if Jim will kill one, the others will be released in honour of Jim's status as a guest, but if he does not, they will all be killed. Simple act utilitarianism would favour Jim killing one of the men.
Williams argued that there is a crucial distinction between a person being killed by Jim, and being killed by the captain because of an act or omission of Jim's. The captain, if he chooses to kill, is not simply the medium of an effect Jim is having on the world. He is the moral actor, the person with the intentions and projects. The utilitarian loses that distinction, turning us into empty vessels by means of which consequences occur. Williams argued that moral decisions must preserve our psychological identity and integrity. We should reject any system that reduces moral decisions to a few algorithms.
Reasons for action
Williams argued that there are only internal reasons for action: "A has a reason to φ if A has some desire the satisfaction of which will be served by his φ-ing." An external reason would be "A has reason to φ," even if nothing in A's "subjective motivational set" would be furthered by her φ-ing. Williams argued that it is meaningless to say that there are external reasons; reason alone does not move people to action.
Sophie-Grace Chappell argues that, without external reasons for action, it becomes impossible to maintain that the same set of moral reasons applies to all agents equally. In cases where someone has no internal reason to do what others see as the right thing, they cannot be blamed for failing to do it, because internal reasons are the only reasons, and blame, Williams wrote, "involves treating the person who is blamed like someone who had a reason to do the right thing but did not do it."
Truth
In his final completed book, Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (2002), Williams identifies the two basic values of truth as accuracy and sincerity, and tries to address the gulf between the demand for truth and the doubt that any such thing exists. Jane O'Grady wrote in a Guardian obituary of Williams that the book is an examination of those who "sneer at any purported truth as ludicrously naive because it is, inevitably, distorted by power, class bias and ideology."
The debt to Friedrich Nietzsche is clear, most obviously in the adoption of a genealogical method as a tool of explanation and critique. Although part of Williams's intention was to attack those he felt denied the value of truth, the book cautions that, to understand it simply in that sense, would be to miss part of its purpose; rather, as Kenneth Baker wrote, it is "Williams' reflection on the moral cost of the intellectual vogue for dispensing with the concept of truth."
Legacy
Williams did not propose any systematic philosophical theory; indeed, he was suspicious of any such attempt. He became known for his dialectical powers, although he was suspicious of them too. Alan Code wrote that Williams had never been "impressed by the display of mere dialectical cleverness, least of all in moral philosophy":
On the contrary, one of the most notable features of his philosophical outlook was an unwavering insistence on a series of points that may seem obvious but which are nevertheless all-too-frequently neglected: that moral or ethical thought is part of human life; that in writing about it, philosophers are writing about something of genuine importance; that it is not easy to say anything worth saying about the subject; that what moral philosophers write is answerable to the realities of human history, psychology, and social affairs; and that mere cleverness is indeed not the relevant measure of value."
In 1996 Martin Hollis said that Williams had "a good claim to be the leading British philosopher of his day," but that, although he had a "lovely eye for the central questions," he had none of the answers. Alan Thomas identified Williams's contribution to ethics as an overarching scepticism about attempts to create a foundation for moral philosophy, explicitly articulated in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985) and Shame and Necessity (1993), in which he argued that moral theories can never reflect the complexities of life, particularly given the radical pluralism of modern societies.
Learning to be yourself, to be authentic and to act with integrity, rather than conforming to any external moral system, is arguably the fundamental motif of Williams's work, according to Sophie Grace Chappell. "If there's one theme in all my work it's about authenticity and self-expression," Williams said in 2002. "It's the idea that some things are in some real sense really you, or express what you and others aren't ... The whole thing has been about spelling out the notion of inner necessity." He moved moral philosophy away from the Kantian question, "What is my duty?", and back to the issue that mattered to the Greeks: "How should we live?"
Publications
Books
(with Alan Montefiore, eds.) British Analytical Philosophy, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966.
Morality: An Introduction to Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Problems of the Self, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
(with J. J. C. Smart) Utilitarianism: For and Against, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry, London: Pelican Books, 1978.
Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973–1980, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
(with Amartya Sen) Utilitarianism and Beyond, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Shame and Necessity, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Making Sense of Humanity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
The Great Philosophers: Plato, Abingdon: Routledge, 1998.
Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Posthumously published
In the Beginning was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, ed. Geoffrey Hawthorn, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.
The Sense of the Past: Essays in the Philosophy Of History, ed. Myles Burnyeat, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, ed. A. W. Moore, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.
On Opera, ed. Patricia Williams, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Essays and Reviews: 1959–2002, Princeton: Princeton University Press 2014.
Selected papers
"Morality and the emotions," in Bernard Williams, Problems of the Self, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, 207–229, first delivered in 1965 as Williams's inaugural lecture at Bedford College, London.
"The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the tedium of immortality", in Bernard Williams, Problems of the Self, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
"Pagan Justice and Christian Love," Apeiron 26(3–4), December 1993, 195–207.
"Cratylus's Theory of Names and Its Refutation," in Stephen Everson (ed.), Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
"The Actus Reus of Dr. Caligari", Pennsylvania Law Review 142, May 1994, 1661–1673.
"Descartes and the Historiography of Philosophy," in John Cottingham (ed.), Reason, Will and Sensation: Studies in Descartes's Metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
"Acting as the Virtuous Person Acts," in Robert Heinaman (ed.), Aristotle and Moral Realism, Westview Press, 1995.
"Ethics," in A. C. Grayling (ed.), Philosophy: A Guide Through the Subject, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
"Identity and Identities," in Henry Harris (ed.), Identity: Essays Based on Herbert Spencer Lectures Given in the University of Oxford, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
"Truth in Ethics," Ratio, 8(3), December 1995, 227–236.
"On Hating and Despising Philosophy", London Review of Books, 18(8), 18 April 1996, 17–18 (courtesy link).
"Contemporary Philosophy: A Second Look," in N. F. Bunnin (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, Blackwell, 1996.
"History, Morality, and the Test of Reflection," in Onora O'Neill (ed.), The Sources of Normativity, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
"Reasons, Values and the Theory of Persuasion," in Francesco Farina, Frank Hahn and Stafano Vannucci (eds.), Ethics, Rationality and Economic Behavior, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
"The Politics of Trust," in Patricia Yeager (ed.), The Geography of Identity, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
"The Women of Trachis: Fictions, Pessimism, Ethics," in R. B. Louden and P. Schollmeier (eds.), The Greeks and Us, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996.
"Toleration: An Impossible Virtue?" in David Heyd (ed.), Toleration: An Exclusive Virtue, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
"Truth, Politics and Self-Deception," Social Research 63.3, Fall 1996.
"Moral Responsibility and Political Freedom," Cambridge Law Journal 56, 1997.
"Stoic Philosophy and the Emotions: Reply to Richard Sorabji," in R. Sorabji (ed.), Aristotle and After, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Supplement 68, 1997.
"Tolerating the Intolerable," in Susan Mendus (ed.), The Politics of Toleration, Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
"Philosophy As a Humanistic Discipline," Philosophy 75, October 2000, 477–496.
"Understanding Homer: Literature, History and Ideal Anthropology," in Neil Roughley (ed.), Being Humans: Anthropological Universality and Particularity in Transdisciplinary Perspectives, Walter de Gruyter, 2000.
"Why Philosophy Needs History", London Review of Books, 24(20), 17 October 2002 (courtesy link).
*Complete Bibliography (as of 2011) by A.W. Moore and Jonathan Williams.
Notes
References
Further reading
Nagel, Thomas. "Moral Luck", Mortal Questions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Nagel, Thomas. "Sir Bernard Williams", Encyclopædia Britannica.
Perry, Alexandra; Herrera, Chris. The Moral Philosophy of Bernard Williams, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
External links
"The Spell of Linguistic Philosophy", Byran Magee interviews Bernard Williams, BBC, 1977, from 00:03:32.
"Bernard Williams", London Review of Books.
"Bernard Williams", The New York Review of Books.
"Bernard Williams: Ethics from a Human Point of View", Paul Russell, Times Literary Supplement.
"Bernard Williams: Philosopher", Links to articles, interviews, videos and more.
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The history of the India national football team dates back to the 1920s. They have never played in the World Cup although they qualified in 1950. They have had no entries in the tournament from 1950 onwards. India have never won the final of the Asian Championship but made it to the final in the 1964 AFC Asian Cup. They have only made three appearances since then.
Early years
The first known official international tour of the Indian team which at that time consisted of both Indian and British players was in 1924, when it was led by legendary Indian footballer Gostha Pal. Football teams consisting of entirely Indian players started to tour Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and Thailand during the late 1930s. The first international match India played before independence is yet to be verified, but the very trace of it can be found in the match India played overseas against Ceylon in 1933. It was India's second international tour, where Gostha Pal led his side to victory by 1–0 score. On 4 July 1936 India played against visiting Chinese team, which was held at Calcutta. The match was a draw of 1–1. After the success of several Indian football clubs abroad, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) was formed in 1937.
In July 1938, Indian team led by Karuna Bhattacharya, played an international charity match against a visiting all European team at Calcutta, where the European side won by a solitary goal. In the same year, India made a long official tour on invitation by Australian Football Association, from August to October where they played 17 matches against many states, districts, club teams and 5 friendly matches against the Australian national side too. The Indian side was managed by Pankaj Gupta and led by Karuna Bhattacharya and the team was considered as an attacking side, consisted of A Rahim, Pram Lal, Jumma Khan, C Robello, B Sen, R.Lumsden, Noor Mohammed, A Nandi, K Prosad, who was dubbed as "Mickey the mouse" by the Australian media for his skills and electric speed at the right wing and the goal was kept by K.Dutt. After playing some matches against state and district teams, on 3 September at Sydney, India played the first friendly match against Australia and got defeated by 5–3 and the match is considered as India's first FIFA-recognised match. Second match was at Brisbane, where the Indians fought back for a draw of 4–4. In the third match at Newcastle, on 17 September India registered their first win by a margin of 4–1. But the Australians defeated India in the next two matches held at Sydney and Melbourne with a score line of 5–4 and 3–1 respectively. At the Sydney match on 24 September, Indian striker Lumsden scored the first hat-trick for India against the Australian side which includes a penalty kick.
On their way to 1948 London Olympics, Chinese team again visited India, where they played Mohammedan SC, East Bengal, and Mohun Bagan then finally on 17 July 1948, a friendly match held at Kolkata, where they were defeated by the Indian national side by a score of 1–0. The 1948 London Olympics was India's first major international tournament, where a predominately barefooted Indian team lost 2–1 to France, failing to convert two penalties. The Indian team was greeted and appreciated by the crowd for their sporting manner. "The French had been given a run for their money – and that, too, by the barefooted Indians!", the British media expressed. At a press conference, shortly after, the Indians were asked why they played barefooted. The ever witty then Indian captain Talimeren Ao said, "Well, you see, we play football in India, whereas you play BOOTBALL!" which was applauded by the British. The next day, that comment was splashed in the newspapers of London.The decision of wearing shoes had to make and the Indians finally settled on wearing shoes if the conditions were wet (rainy) and if they had to play on soft grounds and when the conditions were dry, most players opted to play without shoes and instead wore bandages to protect their feet though fine weather, out of 11 players who took the field eight players were bootless and three were in boots. Sarangapani Raman scored the only goal for India in that match and thus the first Indian international goal ever in the Olympics.
While the 1–2 loss to France and first round elimination was a huge disappointment to the team and the public alike, the quality of football that the team displayed had captivated one and all. Indian footballers’ bravery and brilliance in bare feet at the 1948 Olympics earned them no less a fan than Princess Margaret, the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II. So much so that King George VI invited the team to Buckingham Palace and there, as the story goes, he lifted up Sailen Manna's trouser leg, telling him it was just to check if the Indian really had legs of steel as would appear from the strength of his shots! But there was football still to be played. Encouraged by the accolades and the positive reception to India's football, the AIFF decided to extend the tour with some friendlies across Europe. Over the next several weeks the team would play some matches that would only enhance its growing reputation.
In the Netherlands India lost 1–2 against Sparta Rotterdam but stunned Ajax Amsterdam led by legendary Rinus Michels by 5–1, two days later. Back in England and Wales, it put together a string of victories over several teams including Boldmere St. Michaels F.C., which it met on a muddy pitch at Church Road Ground on 31 August 1948, a day with heavy rainfall. The Indian team was forced to wear boots and a lone goal from B.N. Vajravelu handed India a 1−0 win, with this ended the Europe tour of 1948, a great summer for Indian football history.
1950s to 1960s
In 1950, India managed to qualify for the 1950 FIFA World Cup finals, which was scheduled to take place in Brazil; where it was drawn with Sweden, Italy, and Paraguay. This was not due to any success on the pitch, but due to the fact that all their opponents during the qualifying round, withdrew from the pre-tournament qualifiers. However, India themselves withdrew from the World Cup finals before the tournament was to begin. The All India Football Federation gave various reasons for the team's withdrawal, including travel costs, lack of practice time, and valuing the Olympics above the World Cup.
Despite the reason given out from the AIFF, many football historians and pundits have repeated the tale that India withdrew from the World Cup due to FIFA imposing a rule banning players from playing barefoot.FIFA offered to pay the travel expenses of the Indian team hence India withdrawing due to travel costs is incorrect. However, according to the then captain of India, Sailen Manna, the story of the team not being allowed to play due to wanting to play barefoot was not true. Since then, India has not come close to qualifying for another World Cup.
Despite not participating in the World Cup in 1950, the following years after, from 1951 to 1964, are usually considered to be the "golden era" of Indian football. India, coached by Hyderabad City Police head coach Syed Abdul Rahim, became one of the best teams in Asia. In March 1951, Rahim lead India to their first ever triumph during the 1951 Asian Games. Hosted in India, the team defeated Iran 1–0 in the gold medal match to gain their first trophy. Sahu Mewalal scored the winning goal for India in that match. The next year India went back to the Olympics but were once again defeated in the first round, this time by Yugoslavia and by a score of 10–1. Upon returning to India, the AIFF made it mandatory for footballers to wear boots. After taking the defeat in Finland, India participated in various minor tournaments, such as the Colombo Cup, which they won three times from 1953 to 1955.
In 1954, India returned to the Asian Games as defending champions in Manila. Despite their achievement three years prior, India were unable to go past the group stage as the team finished second in Group C during the tournament, two points behind Indonesia. Two years later, during the 1956 Summer Olympics, India went on to achieve the team's greatest result in a competitive tournament. The team finished in fourth place during the Summer Olympics football tournament, losing the bronze-medal match to Bulgaria 3–0. The tournament is also known for Neville D'Souza's hat-trick against Australia in the quarterfinals. D'Souza's hat-trick was the first hat-trick scored by an Asian in Olympic history and he was the highest goal scorer in that edition of the games along with Todor Veselinović of Yugoslavia and Dimitar Milanov of Bulgaria, 4 goals scored by each.
After their good performance during the Summer Olympics, India participated in the 1958 Asian Games in Tokyo. The team once again finished fourth, losing the bronze-medal match to Indonesia 4–1. The next year the team traveled to Malaysia where they took part in the Merdeka Cup and finished as the tournament runners-up.
India began the 1960s with 1960 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. Despite the qualifiers for the West Zone being held in Kochi, India finished last in their qualification group and thus failed to qualify for the tournament. Despite the set-back, India went on to win the gold medal during the Asian Games for the second time in 1962. The team defeated South Korea 2–1 to win their second major championship.
To qualify for the 1960 Summer Olympics, India took part in the qualification round were in the first round, they defeated Afghanistan in the 1st leg by 5–2, and withdrew from the 2nd, India proceeded to the second round where they defeated Indonesia in both legs by 4–2 & 2–0, they qualified for 1960 Summer Olympics which is their last till now. At that edition, India again failed to proceed from the first round, where they saw two defeats of 2–1 & 3–1 by Hungary, Peru and a draw against France of 1–1.
Two years later, following their Asian Games triumph, India participated in the 1964 AFC Asian Cup after all the other teams in their qualification group withdrew. This was India's first Asian Cup appearance. Despite their automatic entry into the continental tournament, India managed to finish as the runners-up during the tournament, losing out to the hosts, Israel, by two points. This remains India's best performance in the AFC Asian Cup. India returned to the Asian Games in 1966. Despite their performance two years prior during the AFC Asian Cup, India could not go beyond the group stage as the team finished third, behind Japan and Iran.
1970s to 1990s
Four years later to 1966 Asian Games, India participated at the 1970 Asian Games, where they came back and took third place during the tournament. The team defeated Japan 1–0 during the bronze-medal match.
In 1974, India's performance in the Asian Games once again sharply declined as they finished the 1974 edition in last place in their group, losing all three matches, scoring two, and conceding 14 goals in the first round. India then showed steady improvement during the 1978 tournament, finishing second in their group of three. The team were then knocked-out in the next round, finishing last in their group with three defeats from three matches. The 1982 tournament proved to be better for India as the side managed to qualify for the quarter-finals before losing to Saudi Arabia 1–0.
In 1984, India managed to qualify for the AFC Asian Cup for the first time since their second place triumph in 1964. During the 1984 tournament, India finished in last place in their five team group in the first round. India's only non-defeat during the tournament came against Iran, a 0–0 draw.
Despite India's decline from a major football power in Asia, the team still managed to assert its dominance as the top team in South Asia. India managed to win the football competition of the South Asian Games in 1985 and then again won the gold medal in 1987. The team then began the 1990s by winning the inaugural SAFF Championship in 1993. The team ended the 20th century by winning the SAFF Championship again in 1997 and 1999.
2000–2009
India's first competitive matches of the 21st century were the 2002 FIFA World Cup first round qualifiers. Despite a very bright start, defeating the United Arab Emirates 1–0, drawing Yemen 1–1, as well as two victories over Brunei, including a 5–0 victory in Bangalore, India finished a point away from qualification for the next round. In 2003, India took part in the 2003 SAFF Championship. The team qualified for the semi-finals but fell to Bangladesh 2–1.
Later in 2003, India participated in the Afro-Asian Games being held in Hyderabad. Under the coaching of Stephen Constantine, India managed to make it to the final of the tournament after defeating Zimbabwe, a team ranked 85 places above India in the FIFA rankings at the time, 5–3. Despite the major victory, during the gold-medal match India were defeated 1–0 by Uzbekistan U21. Due to this achievement, Constantine was voted as the Asian Football Confederation's Manager of the Month for October 2003. The tournament result also gave India more recognition around the country and around the world.
Constantine was replaced by Syed Nayeemuddin in 2005 but the Indian head coach only lasted for a little over a year as India suffered many heavy defeats during the 2007 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. During this time India were defeated 6–0 by Japan, 3–0 by Saudi Arabia and Yemen respectively at home, and 7–1 away in Jeddah. Former Malmö and China coach Bob Houghton was brought in as head coach in May 2006.
Under Houghton, India witnessed massive improvement in their football standing. In August 2007, Houghton won the country the restarted Nehru Cup after India defeated Syria 1–0 in the final. Pappachen Pradeep scored the winning goal for India that match. The next year, Houghton lead India during the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup, which was hosted in Hyderabad and Delhi. During the tournament, India breezed through the group stage before defeating Myanmar in the semi-finals. In the final against Tajikistan, India, through a Sunil Chhetri hat-trick, won the match 4–1. The victory not only earned India the championship but it also allowed India to qualify for the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, the nation's first Asian Cup appearance in 27 years. In order to prepare for the Asian Cup, Houghton had the team stay together as a squad for eight months from June 2010 till the start of the tournament, meaning the players would not play for their clubs.
India were drawn into Group C for the Asian Cup with Australia, South Korea, and Bahrain. Despite staying together as a team for eight months, India lost all three of their matches during the Asian Cup, including a 4–0 defeat to Australia. Despite the results, India were still praised by fans and pundits for their valiant efforts during the tournament.
2010–2019
AFC Asian Cup
In 2011, India started off their campaign by participating in 2011 AFC Asian Cup for which they qualified after 24 years. They were placed in strong Group C along with South Korea, Australia and Bahrain. India lost all three matches but did manage to perform well in patches. Goalkeeper Subrata Pal won a lot of accolades for his performances.
After 2011 Asia Cup
After participating the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, India's quest to qualify for the 2015 edition of the tournament began in February 2011 with AFC Challenge Cup qualifiers. Bob Houghton decided to change the makeup of the India squad, replacing many of the aging players from the Asian Cup with some young players from the AIFF development side in the I-League, Indian Arrows. Even with a young side, India managed to qualify for the AFC Challenge Cup with ease. Despite the good result though with a young side, the AIFF decided to terminate the contract of Bob Houghton.
India played its first match in 2012 AFC Challenge Cup qualification on 21 March winning 3–0 against Chinese Taipei, with Jewel Raja Shaikh, Sunil Chhetri and Jeje Lalpekhlua scoring the goals. On 23 March they faced Pakistan. India came from behind and defeated Pakistan 3–1 with Jeje Lalpekhlua scoring 2 goals and Steven Dias scoring one. On 25 March they faced Turkmenistan in their last 2012 AFC Challenge Cup qualifying game and. India drew the game 1–1. The result meant that they finished on top of Group B and qualified for the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup. After having Dempo coach, Armando Colaco, as interim head coach, the AIFF signed Savio Medeira as head coach in October 2011. Despite leading India to another SAFF Championship victory, Medeira lead India to their worst performance in the AFC Challenge Cup in March 2012. The team lost all three of their group matches, unable to score a single goal during the tournament. After the tournament, Medeira was replaced as head coach by Dutchman, Wim Koevermans. Koeverman's first job as head coach was the 2012 Nehru Cup. India won their third successive Nehru Cup, defeating Cameroon side on penalties.
By March 2015, after not playing any matches, India reached their lowest FIFA ranking position of 173. A couple months prior, Stephen Constantine was re-hired as the head coach after first leading India more than a decade before. Constantine's first major assignment back as the India head coach were the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers. After making it through the first round of qualifiers, India crashed out during the second round, losing seven of their eight matches and thus, once again, failed to qualify for the World Cup.
Despite failure to qualify for the World Cup, India managed to reach the third round of 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers after defeating Laos in the play-off round on aggregate 7–1. On 11 October 2017, India secured qualification for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup after a 4–1 victory over Macau.
Though defeated at 2018 SAFF Championship final by 1–2 to Maldives in September 2018, India regained the momentum with some friendlies against China, Jordan and Oman as they began the 2019 AFC Asian Cup with a 4–1 victory against Thailand and is the biggest ever Asia cup win for the team and its first one in 55 years. Nevertheless, they lost both of their next two group matches against UAE and Bahrain by 0−2 and 0−1 respectively and finished at the bottom of the group, thus failed to move to knock out stage. Stephen Constantine immediately resigned from his position as head coach following the failure to progress further in the tournament.
On 15 May 2019, the AIFF announced former Croatian player Igor Štimac as the team's head coach after the departure of Stephen Constantine. Under his coaching India's first campaign was 2019 King's Cup where the first match was against Curaçao, which ended up as 3−1 loss. In that match Štimac had given six players their international debut. In the next match against the host Thailand they managed a 1−0 victory acquiring the third place in the tournament. Štimac's major campaign with India was 2022 World Cup qualification, with a 1–2 home loss to Oman. But in the second match they earned a respectable point after managing a goalless draw against the 2019 Asian Champion and 2022 FIFA World Cup host Qatar.
Home Stadiums
Kit history
The India national team plays in blue, the colour of the Ashoka Chakra on the Indian flag. The other colours on the flag, saffron, white, and India green, were deemed too controversial to be used as the main colour, as jerseys with saffron and green are often used by neighbouring countries. Blue as the national colour for India was soon made more prominent due to the success of the India cricket team and field hockey teams. The football team, however, has used some sort of shade of blue for decades.
The national team kits and uniforms have evolved as the game has over the years and in recent times new technologies have been utilised to improve the kits and uniforms. At the turn of the 21st century, India wore a sky blue shirt with black pants and sky blue socks as their kit. In 2002, the All India Football Federation signed a deal with German manufacturer Adidas to produce the India kit. The first kit made by Adidas was all-white. After four years with Adidas, the AIFF signed an agreement with American company Nike on 27 February 2006. The deal was for seven years. Nike's first kits for India were in darker blue while the away kit was changed from white to orange.
For the 2011 AFC Asian Cup, in which India were participating, Nike designed India's kit using the same template it used for other national teams such as Brazil. In January 2013. it was announced that the AIFF's deal with Nike was extended for an extra five years. Nike made a simplistic kit in 2006 with a light blue shirt with a little shade of white on the shirt and white short. The 2009-10 Nike kit was a throwback to the 2006-07 kit but the blue colour got a bit darker and they experimented with horizontal stripes for the first time in 2013. In September 2017, prior to the India U17 side's participation in the FIFA U-17 World Cup, Nike unveiled an all sky blue kit for the India senior and youth teams. Inspired by the history and heritage of the Blue Tigers, India's latest Nike national team kit features a new shade of blue and an orange stripe that runs the length of the jersey and shorts. That stripe expands when a player is in motion to maximize ventilation, complementing Nike's proprietary Dri-FIT technology that helps draw sweat away from the body. These features allow players to perform at their best by remaining cool, dry and more comfortable.
A year later, on 17 December 2018, it was announced that Indian manufacturer Six5Six would replace Nike as India's kit maker. In becoming India's new kit makers, Six5Six also became the first manufacturer to pay for the rights to produce India kits, after both Nike and Adidas didn't pay. Six5Six unveiled their first jersey for the team before the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, with the home colour had a similar sky blue shade and the away colour was changed to white from orange but both the jerseys had unique design embellished on the sleeves representing tiger stripes to pay homage to the Indian football fans, who affectionately calls the team "Blue Tigers", where as the goalkeeper's jersey replaced the light green to orange colour with the same sleeves design.
Kit sponsorship
First Kit
Second Kit
FIFA World Rankings
Best Ranking Best Mover Worst Ranking Worst Mover
Notable players
In the early 20th century when the Indian football was taking shape, India produced one of the best footballers from Asia at that time, Gostha Pal, who started playing professional football at the age of 16 in 1911 and was the first captain of Indian team. He was a skilled, tactful and composed defender of his time and considered as the best defender India had ever produced. He was the first footballer to be awarded Padma Shree in the year 1962 and in 1998 Government of India introduced postal stamp to honour the legend.
In the later 1930s, India came out to be one of the strongest attacking teams from Asia, evidenced during their winter tour of Australia in 1938, where the attacking Indian side including Lumsden, Noor Mohammed, Rahim, K.Prosad, A Nandi under the leadership of K.Bhattacharya stormed the New South Wales coast with a total of 58 goals in 17 matches, which includes five international friendlies against Australia, where Lumsden scored three hat-tricks, one being against the Australian side, thus scoring the first international hat-trick for India.
Talimeren Ao, the first captain of Indian team in independent India was the pioneer of Indian football. His skills in football was glorified as his name which means "a lot of glory" and his legacy is one of the reason for North-east India to be one of the power house of Indian football. At a very young age, dribbling improvised balls made out of rags, cane-strips or pomelos as a real football was hard to come by, gradually improved his skills as defensive midfielder which was frustrating for opponent team strikers. He was asked to join the national colour and was unanimously given the responsibility of leading the team at 1948 Olympics, India's first major tournament since independence and also was the flag bearer of Indian contingents at London. Sarangapani Raman scored the only goal for India at 1948 games which was India's first goal at Olympics. Government of India introduced postal stamp to honour the legend in 2018.
Walking on Ao's foot steps, it was Sailen Manna who came out as one of the best defender for the team, and was given the team's captaincy in 1951 at Asian Games and led the team to win gold medal, thus started the Indian golden period in football. He later led the team to three Quadrangular Cup from 1952 to 1954 and also captained at the 1952 Olympics and 1954 Asian Games. In 1953, England Football Association rated Manna among 10 Best Skippers of the World in its yearbook., awarded Padma Shri by Government of India in 1971 and AIFF honoured him as "AIFF Player-of-the-Millennium" in 2000.
In the 1950s and 60s, excellent strikers like Sheoo Mewalal, Neville D'Souza, Chuni Goswami and Tulsidas Balaram played for the national team. Mewalal was known for his fitness and bicycle kicks, who played as striker in the 1948 Olympics, 1952 Olympics and 1951 Asian games where he became highest goal scorer with four goals to help India to win gold. Mewalal became the first Indian to score a hat-trick since independence when he scored it against Burma at 1952 Colombo Cup where as D'Souza is the first Asian player to score a hat-trick in an Olympic Games, scoring a hat-trick against Australia at 1956 Olympics and also was the joint-highest-goal-scorer in that edition of the Games which helped India to reach the semi-final, the best ever India's performance at the Olympics.
Chuni Goswami is multi-sports athlete who played both football and cricket. His balance, dribbling skills, ball control and passing made him a complete striker. He represented the country at 1958 Asian Games and captained at 1962 Asian Games to win gold, 1960 Olympics and also captained at the 1964 Asian Cup where they mined silver. He was one of greatest players in Indian football history and was bestowed with Padma Shri by Government of India and AFC honoured him as Best Striker of Asia in 1962.
P.K.Banerjee, a refined winger who represented the Indian team at 1956 Olympics and later captained 1960 Olympics, was named as the "Indian Player of the 20th Century " by IFFHS along with Peter Thangaraj as the "Indian Keeper of the 20th Century " who also represented the Indian team in the same edition of Olympics. Banerjee along with Thangaraj also represented India at the 1958, 1962 and 1966 Asian games and at the 1962 edition they won the gold where in the final he scored one of the two winning goals. P.K.Banerjee was honoured with "World Fair Play Award" by CIPF in the year 1989, Padma Shri by Government of India in 1990 and in 2004 FIFA bestowed Banerjee with "FIFA Centennial Order of Merit" Award, the highest honour awarded by FIFA
Since 1970s to 2000 Indian team failed to grow at the same pace as in the 1950s and 1960s. But players like Syed Nayeemuddin had a few stints like winning bronze at 1970 Asian Games. He went on to coach the national team several times between 1986 and 2006. In the 1990s, the best player to emerge was I. M. Vijayan, who was known for his quick movements and skills. He played a long career with 66 international matches for India where he scored 29 goals and captained the India side at several occasions.
In the mid-1990s, Baichung Bhutia debuted, who played for the team during a period when its FIFA ranking dipped from 100 during his debut to 160 when he retired. But he successfully led the team to qualify to AFC Asian Cup after a drought of 27 years. He was the captain of the team for over ten years during its low point and under his captaincy, India won the SAFF Championship three times, two Nehru Cup in year 2007 and 2009 and the AFC Challenge Cup in 2008. Considered as one of the greatest footballers of India he is second-most capped player of India with 82 caps and scored 27 times for India. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2008.
The most famous footballer of the present era is Sunil Chettri, Captain Fantastic as his followers call him. He is the only footballer in India's history who played 100 international matches for India and is the all-time highest goal-scorer of India. He has led the national team to many victories, most importantly qualifying for the AFC Asian Cup and under his leadership the team achieved its highest FIFA ranking of 96 after twenty years. His goal-scoring ability and skills make him the only India striker to score three hat-tricks for India. He also became the second highest goal scorer among active players in international competitions surpassing Lionel Messi in 2019 and was second to Cristiano Ronaldo
Gostha Pal
R. Lumsden
Noor Mohammed
K Prosad
A Nandi
Mohammed Salim
Talimeran Ao
Sarangapani Raman
Sheoo Mewalal
Sailen Manna
Neville D'Souza
Tulsidas Balaram
P.K. Banerjee
VP Sathyan
Chuni Goswami
Jarnail Singh
Yousuf Khan
Peter Thangaraj
Inder Singh
Syed Nayeemuddin
Magan Singh Rajvi
Gurdev Singh Gill
Prasun Banerjee
Mohammed Habib
Shabbir Ali
Brahmanand Sankhwalkar
I.M. Vijayan
Baichung Bhutia
Bruno Coutinho
Sunil Chhetri
Steven Dias
Clifford Miranda
Gouramangi Singh
Syed Rahim Nabi
Subrata Pal
Jeje Lalpekhlua
See also
India national football team results
India national football team at the FIFA World Cup qualification
References
External links
India national football team
National
India
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A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but since the 14th century have only been used in place of private acts to grant a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organisations such as boroughs (with municipal charters), universities and learned societies.
Charters should be distinguished from royal warrants of appointment, grants of arms and other forms of letters patent, such as those granting an organisation the right to use the word "royal" in their name or granting city status, which do not have legislative effect. The British monarchy has issued over 1,000 royal charters. Of these about 750 remain in existence.
The earliest charter recorded on the UK government's list was granted to the University of Cambridge by Henry III of England in 1231, although older charters are known to have existed including to the Worshipful Company of Weavers in England in 1150 and to the town of Tain in Scotland in 1066. Charters continue to be issued by the British Crown, a recent example being that awarded to The Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, in 2014.
Historical development
Charters have been used in Europe since medieval times to grant rights and privileges to towns, boroughs and cities. During the 14th and 15th century the concept of incorporation of a municipality by royal charter evolved.
Among the past and present groups formed by royal charter are the Company of Merchants of the Staple of England (13th century), the British East India Company (1600), the Hudson's Bay Company, the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China (since merged into Standard Chartered), the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), the British South Africa Company, and some of the former British colonies on the North American mainland, City livery companies, the Bank of England and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Corporations
Between the 14th and 19th centuries, royal charters were used to create chartered companies – for-profit ventures with shareholders, used for exploration, trade and colonisation. Early charters to such companies often granted trade monopolies, but this power was restricted to Parliament from the end of the 17th century. Until the 19th century, royal charters were the only means other than an act of parliament by which a company could be incorporated; in the UK, the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 opened up a route to incorporation by registration, since when incorporation by royal charter has been, according to the Privy Council, "a special token of Royal favour or ... a mark of distinction".
The use of royal charters to incorporate organisations gave rise to the concept of the "corporation by prescription". This enabled corporations that had existed from time immemorial to be recognised as incorporated via the legal fiction of a "lost charter". Examples of corporations by prescription include Oxford and Cambridge universities.
Universities and colleges
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, of the 81 universities established in pre-Reformation Europe, 13 were established ex consuetudine without any form of charter, 33 by Papal bull alone, 20 by both Papal bull and imperial or royal charter, and 15 by imperial or royal charter alone. Universities established solely by royal (as distinct from imperial) charter did not have the same international recognition – their degrees were only valid within that kingdom.
The first university to be founded by charter was the University of Naples in 1224, founded by an imperial charter of Frederick II. The first university founded by royal charter was the University of Coimbra in 1290, by King Denis of Portugal, which received papal confirmation the same year. Other early universities founded by royal charter include the University of Perpignan (1349; papal confirmation 1379) and the University of Huesca (1354; no confirmation), both by Peter IV of Aragon; the Jagiellonian University (1364; papal confirmation the same year) by Casimir III of Poland; the University of Vienna (1365; Papal confirmation the same year) by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria; the University of Caen (1432; Papal confirmation 1437) by Henry VI of England; the University of Girona (1446; no confirmation) and the University of Barcelona (1450; papal confirmation the same year), both by Alfonso V of Aragon; the University of Valence (1452; papal confirmation 1459) by the Dauphin Louis (later Louis XI of France); and the University of Palma (1483; no confirmation) by Ferdinand II of Aragon.
British Isles
The University of Cambridge was confirmed by a papal bull in 1317 or 1318, but despite repeated attempts, the University of Oxford never received such confirmation. The three pre-Reformation Scottish universities were all established by papal bulls: St Andrews in 1413; Glasgow in 1451; and King's College, Aberdeen (which later became the University of Aberdeen) in 1494.
Following the Reformation, establishment of universities and colleges by royal charter became the norm. The University of Edinburgh was founded under the authority of a royal charter granted to the Edinburgh town council in 1582 by James VI as the "town's college". Trinity College Dublin was established by a royal charter of Elizabeth I (as Queen of Ireland) in 1593. Both of these charters were given in Latin.
The Edinburgh charter gave permission for the town council "to build and to repair sufficient houses and places for the reception, habitation and teaching of professors of the schools of grammar, the humanities and languages, philosophy, theology, medicine and law, or whichever liberal arts which we declare detract in no way from the aforesaid mortification" and granted them the right to appoint and remove professors. But, as concluded by Edinburgh's principal, Sir Alexander Grant, in his tercentenary history of the university, "Obviously this is no charter founding a university". Instead, he proposed, citing multiple pieces of evidence, that the surviving charter was original granted alongside a second charter founding the college, which was subsequently lost (possibly deliberately). This would also explain the source of Edinburgh's degree awarding powers, which were used from the foundation of the college.
The royal charter of Trinity College Dublin, while being straightforward in incorporating the college, also named it as "mother of a University", and rather than granting the college degree-awarding powers stated that "the students on this College … shall have liberty and power to obtain degrees of Bachelor, Master, and Doctor, at a suitable time, in all arts and faculties". Thus the University of Dublin was also brought into existence by this charter, as the body that awards the degrees earned by students at Trinity College.
Following this, no surviving universities were created in the British Isles until the 19th century. The 1820s saw two colleges receive royal charters: St David's College, Lampeter in 1828 and King's College London in 1829. Neither of these were granted degree-awarding powers or university status. The 1830s saw an attempt by University College London to gain a charter as a university and the creation by Act of Parliament of Durham University, but without incorporating it or granting any specific powers. These led to debate about the powers of royal charters and what was implicit to a university.
The essence of the debate was firstly whether the power to award degrees was incidental to the creation of a university or needed to be explicitly granted and secondly whether a royal charter could, if the power to award degrees was incidental, limit that power – UCL wishing to be granted a royal charter as "London University" but excluding the power to award degrees in theology due to the secular nature of the institute. Sir Charles Wetherell, arguing against the grant of a royal charter to UCL before the Privy Council in 1835, argued for degree-awarding powers being an essential part of a university that could not be limited by charter. However, Sir William Hamilton, wrote a response to Wetherell in the Edinburgh Review, drawing in Durham University and arguing that the power to award specific degrees had been explicitly granted historically, thus creating a university did not implicitly grant degree-awarding powers.
UCL was incorporated by royal charter in 1836, but without university status or degree-awarding powers, which went instead to the University of London, created by royal charter with the explicit power to grant degrees in Arts, Law and Medicine. Durham University was incorporated by royal charter in 1837, but although this confirmed that it had "all the property, rights, and privileges which ... are incident to a University established by our Royal Charter" it contained no explicit grant of degree-awarding powers. This was considered sufficient for it to award "degrees in all the faculties", but all future university royal charters explicitly stated that they were creating a university and explicitly granted degree-awarding power. Both London (1878) and Durham (1895) later received supplemental charters allowing the granting of degrees to women, which was considered to require explicit authorisation. After going through four charters and a number of supplemental charters, London was reconstituted by Act of Parliament in 1898.
The Queen's Colleges in Ireland, at Belfast, Cork, and Galway, were established by royal charter in 1845, as colleges without degree awarding powers. The Queens University of Ireland received its royal charter in 1850, stating "We do will, order, constitute, ordain and found an University ... and the same shall possess and exercise the full powers of granting all such Degrees as are granted by other Universities or Colleges in the faculties of Arts, Medicine and Law". This served as the degree awarding body for the Queen's Colleges until it was replaced by the Royal University of Ireland.
The royal charter of the Victoria University in 1880 started explicitly that "There shall be and is hereby constituted and founded a University" and granted an explicit power of awarding degrees (except in medicine, added by supplemental charter in 1883).
From then until 1992, all universities in the United Kingdom were created by royal charter except for Newcastle University, which was separated from Durham via an Act of Parliament. Following the independence of the Republic of Ireland, new universities there have been created by Acts of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament). Since 1992, most new universities in the UK have been created by Orders of Council as secondary legislation under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, although granting degree-awarding powers and university status to colleges incorporated by royal charter is done via an amendment to their charter.
United States
Several of the colonial colleges that predate the American Revolution are described as having been established by royal charter. Except for The College of William & Mary, which received its charter from King William III and Queen Mary II in 1693 following a mission to London by college representatives, these were either provincial charters granted by local governors (acting in the name of the king) or charters granted by legislative acts from local assemblies.
The first charters to be issued by a colonial governor on the consent of their council (rather than by an act of legislation) were those granted to Princeton University (as the College of New Jersey) in 1746 (from acting governor John Hamilton) and 1748 (from Governor Jonathan Belcher). There was concern as to whether a royal charter given by a governor in the King's name was valid without royal approval. An attempt to resolve this in London in 1754 ended inconclusively when Henry Pelham, the prime minister, died. However, Princeton's charter was never challenged in court prior to its ratification by the state legislature in 1780, following the US Declaration of Independence.
Columbia University received its royal charter (as King's College) in 1754 from Lieutenant Governor James DeLancey of New York, who bypassed the assembly rather than risking it rejecting the charter. Rutgers University received its (as Queen's College) in 1766 (and a second charter in 1770) from Governor William Franklin of New Jersey, and Dartmouth College received its in 1769 from Governor John Wentworth of New Hampshire. The case of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, heard before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1818, centred on the status of the college's royal charter. The court found in 1819 that the charter was a contract under the Contract Clause of the US Constitution, meaning that it could not be impaired by state legislation, and that it had not been dissolved by the revolution.
The charter for the College of William and Mary specified it to be a "place of universal study, or perpetual college, for divinity, philosophy, languages and other good arts and sciences", but made no mention of the right to award degrees. The Princeton charter, however, specified that the college could "give and grant any such degree and degrees ... as are usually granted in either of our universities or any other college in our realm of Great Britain". Columbia's charter used very similar language a few years later, as did Dartmouth's charter. The charter of Rutger uses quite different words, specifying that it may "confer all such honorary degrees as usually are granted and conferred in any of our colleges in any of our colonies in America".
Of the other colleges founded prior to the American Revolution, Harvard College was established in 1636 by Act of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and incorporated in 1650 by a charter from the same body, Yale University was established in 1701 by Act of the General Assembly of Connecticut, the University of Pennsylvania received a charter from the proprietors of the colony in 1753, Brown University was established in 1764 (as the College of Rhode Island) by an Act of the Governor and General Assembly of Rhode Island, and Hampden-Sydney College was established privately in 1775 but not incorporated until 1783.
Canada
Eight Canadian universities and colleges were founded or reconstituted under royal charter in the 19th century, prior to confederation in 1867. Most Canadian universities originally established by royal charter were subsequently reincorporated by acts of legislature.
The University of King's College was founded in 1789 and received a royal charter in 1802 naming it, like Trinity College Dublin, "the Mother of an University" and granting it the power to award degrees. The charter remains in force.
McGill University was established under the name of McGill College in 1821 by a provincial royal charter issued by Lord Dalhousie as Governor General of British North America, which stated that the "College shall be deemed and taken to be an University" and should have the power to grant degrees. It was reconstituted by a Royal Charter issued in 1852 by Queen Victoria, which remains in force.
The University of New Brunswick was founded in 1785 as the Academy of Liberal Arts and Sciences and received a provincial charter as the College of New Brunswick in 1800. In the 1820s it began giving university-level instruction and received a Royal Charter under the name "King's College" as a "College, with the style and privileges of an University" in 1827. The college was reconstituted as the University of New Brunswick by an act of legislature in 1859.
The University of Toronto was founded by royal charter in 1827 under the name of King's College as a "College, with the style and privileges of an University", but did not open until 1843. The charter was subsequently revoked and the institution replaced by the University of Toronto in 1849 under provincial legislation. Victoria University, a college of the University of Toronto, opened in 1832 under the name of the Upper Canada Academy giving "pre-university" classes and received a royal charter in 1836. In 1841 a provincial act replaced the charter, reconstituted the academy as Victoria College, and granted it degree-awarding powers. Another college of Toronto, Trinity College, was incorporated by an act of legislature in 1851 and received a royal charter in 1852 stating that it "shall be a University and shall have and enjoy all such and the like privileges as are enjoyed by our Universities of our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland".
Queen's University was established by royal charter in 1841. This remains in force as the university's primary constitutional document and was last amended, through the Canadian federal parliament, in 2011.
Laval University was founded by royal charter in 1852, which granted it degree awarding powers and started that it would "have, possess and enjoy all such and the like privileges as are enjoyed by our Universities of our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". This was replaced by a new charter from the National Assembly of Quebec in 1971.
Bishop's University was founded, as Bishop's College, by an Act of Canadian Parliament in 1843 and received a royal charter in 1853 granting it the power to award degrees and stating that "said College shall be deemed and taken to be a University, and shall have and enjoy all such and the like privileges as are enjoyed by our Universities of our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland".
The University of Ottawa was established in 1848 as the College of Bytown. It received a royal charter under the name College of Ottawa raising it to university status in 1866.
Australia
The older Australian universities of Sydney (1850) and Melbourne (1853) were founded by acts of the legislatures of the colonies. This gave rise to doubts about whether their degrees would be recognised outside of those colonies, leading to them seeking royal charters from London, which would grant legitimacy across the British Empire.
The University of Sydney obtained a royal charter in 1858. This stated that (emphasis in the original):
The charter went on to (emphasis in the original):
The University of Melbourne's charter, issued the following year, similarly granted its degrees equivalence with those from British universities.
The act that established the University of Adelaide in 1874 included women undergraduates, causing a delay in the granting of its charter as the authorities in London did not wish to allow this. A further petition for the power to award degrees to women was rejected in 1878 – the same year that London was granted that authority. A charter was finally granted – admitting women to degrees – in 1881.
The last of Australia's 19th century universities, the University of Tasmania, was established in 1890 and obtained a royal charter in 1915.
Guilds, learned societies and professional bodies
Guilds and livery companies are among the earliest organisations recorded as receiving royal charters. The Privy Council list has the Saddlers Company in 1272 as the earliest, followed by the Merchant Taylors Company in 1326 and the Skinners Company in 1327. The earliest charter to the Saddlers Company gave them authority over the saddlers trade; it was not until 1395 that they received a charter of incorporation. The Merchant Taylors were similarly incorporated by a subsequent charter in 1408.
Royal charters gave the first regulation of medicine in Great Britain and Ireland. The Barbers Company of London in 1462, received the earliest recorded charters concerning medicine or surgery, charging them with the superintendence, scrutiny, correction and governance of surgery. A further charter in 1540 to the London Guild – renamed the Company of Barber-Surgeons – specified separate classes of surgeons, barber-surgeons, and barbers. The London Company of Surgeons separated from the barbers in 1745, eventually leading to the establishment of the Royal College of Surgeons by royal charter in 1800. The Royal College of Physicians of London was established by royal charter in 1518 and charged with regulating the practice of medicine in the City of London and within seven miles of the city.
The Barbers Guild (the Gild of St Mary Magdalen) in Dublin is said to have received a charter in 1446, although this was not recorded in the rolls of chancery and was lost in the 18th century. A later charter united the barbers with the (previously unincorporated) surgeons in 1577. The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland was established by royal charter in 1667 and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, which evolved from the Barbers' Guild in Dublin, in 1784.
The Royal Society was established in 1660 as Britain's first learned society and received its first royal charter in 1662. It was reincorporated by a second royal charter in 1663, which was then amended by a third royal charter in 1669. These were all in Latin, but a supplemental charter in 2012 gave an English translation to take precedence over the Latin text. The Royal Society of Edinburgh was established by royal charter in 1783 and the Royal Irish Academy was established in 1785 and received its royal charter in 1786.
New professional bodies were formed in Britain in the early 19th century representing new professions that arose after the industrial revolution and the rise of laissez-faire capitalism. These new bodies sought recognition by gaining royal charters, laying out their constitutions and defining the profession in question, often based on occupational activity or particular expertise. To their various corporate objectives, these bodies added the concept of working in the public interest that was not found in earlier professional bodies. This established a pattern for British professional bodies, and the 'public interest' has become a key test for a body seeking a royal charter.
Australia
Royal charters have been used in Australia to incorporate non-profit organisations. However, since at least 2004 this has not been a recommended mechanism.
Belgium
The royal decree is the equivalent in Belgium of a royal charter. In the period before 1958, 32 higher education institutes had been created by royal charter. These were typically engineering or technical institutions rather than universities.
However, several non-technical higher education institutions have been founded, or refounded, under royal decree, such as the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (National Fund for Scientific Research) in 1928 and the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten in 1938.
Since the Belgian state reform of 1988–1989, competency over education was transferred to the federated entities of Belgium. Royal decrees can therefore no longer grant higher education institution status or university status.
Canada
In Canada, there are a number of organisations that have received royal charters. However, the term is often applied incorrectly to organisations, such as the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, that have been granted the use of a royal title rather than a royal charter.
Companies and societies
Companies, corporations, and societies in Canada founded under or augmented by a royal charter include:
The Canada Company, incorporated by Act of Parliament in June 1825. A royal charter was issued in August 1826 to purchase and develop lands. Purchased the Crown Reserve of 1,384,413 acres and a special grant of 1,100,000 acres in the Huron County area.
The Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, founded in 1824 as the first learned society in Canada, received its royal charter in 1831.
The Royal Society of Canada, founded by Act of Parliament and granted a royal charter in 1883.
The Royal Life Saving Society of Canada, founded 1891 and received royal patronage and style 1904. A royal charter was granted in 1924 by King George V.
British royal chartered corporations operating in Canada:
The East India Company; granted a royal charter in 1600 by Queen Elizabeth I (tea sales in North America)
The Hudson's Bay Company; founded by a royal charter issued in 1670 by King Charles II (administration of parts of current Quebec, Northern Ontario and North West Territories, including Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and judicial connections with Upper Canada)
The Bank of British North America capital raised in Britain, founded by royal charter issued in 1836 (amalgamated with Bank of Montreal 1918).
The Royal Commonwealth Society; founded by a Royal Charter issued in 1882 by Queen Victoria
The Royal Academy of Dance; founded in 1920 as the Association of Teachers of Operatic Dancing; reconstituted by a royal charter issued in 1936 by King George V
The Boy Scouts Association founded in 1910; incorporated by royal charter in 1912; Canadian General Council, now called Scouts Canada, formed in 1914 and incorporated by Act of the Canadian Parliament in 1914.
Territories and communities
Cities under royal charter are not subject to municipal Acts of Parliament applied generally to other municipalities, and instead are governed by legislation applicable to each city individually. The royal charter codifies the laws applied to the particular city, and lays out the powers and responsibilities not given to other municipalities in the province concerned.
St. John's; claimed as England's first oversea colony by royal charter issued in 1583 by Queen Elizabeth I
Nova Scotia; founded by a Royal Charter issued in 1621 by King James I
Saint John; founded by a royal charter issued in 1785 by King George III
Vancouver
Winnipeg
Montreal
India
The Institution of Engineers was incorporated by royal charter in 1935.
Ireland
A number of Irish institutions were established by or received royal charters prior to Irish independence. These are no longer under the jurisdiction of the British Privy Council and their charters can thus only be altered by a Charter or Act of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament).
South Africa
The University of South Africa received a Royal Charter in 1877. The Royal Society of South Africa received a Royal Charter in 1908.
United Kingdom
Royal charters continue to be used in the United Kingdom to incorporate charities and professional bodies, to raise districts to borough status, and to grant university status and degree awarding powers to colleges previously incorporated by royal charter.
Most new grants of royal charters are reserved for eminent professional bodies, learned societies or charities "which can demonstrate pre-eminence, stability and permanence in their particular field". The body in question has to demonstrate not just pre-eminence and financial stability but also that bringing it under public regulation in this manner is in the public interest. In 2016, the decision to grant a royal charter to the (British) Association for Project Management (APM) was challenged in the court by the (American) Project Management Institute (PMI), who feared it would give a competitive advantage to APM and claimed the criteria had not been correctly applied; the courts ruled that while the possibility of suffering a competitive disadvantage did give PMI standing to challenge the decision, the Privy Council was permitted to take the public interest (in having a chartered body promoting the profession of project management) into account as outweighing any failure to meet the criteria in full. A list of UK chartered professional associations is at .
Individual chartered designations, such as chartered accountant or chartered engineer, are granted by some chartered professional bodies to individual members that meet certain criteria. The Privy Council's policy is that all chartered designations should be broadly similar, and most require Master's level qualifications (or similar experience).
In January 2007, the UK Trade Marks Registry refused to grant protection to the American Chartered Financial Analyst trademark, as the word "chartered" in the UK is associated with royal charters, thus its use would be misleading. "Charter" and "chartered" continue to be "sensitive words" in company names, requiring evidence of a royal charter or (for "chartered") permission from a professional body operating under royal charter. The use of "chartered" in a collective trade mark similarly requires the association applying for the mark to have a royal charter as otherwise "the mark would mislead the public into believing that the association and its members have chartered status".
Unlike other royal charters, a charter to raise a district to borough status is issued using statutory powers under the Local Government Act 1972 rather than by the royal prerogative.
The company registration number of a corporation with a royal charter is prefixed by "RC" for companies registered in England and Wales, "SR" for companies registered in Scotland, and "NR" for companies registered in Northern Ireland. However, many chartered corporations from outside England have an RC prefix from when this was used universally.
The BBC operates under a royal charter which lasts for a period of ten years, after which it is renewed.
United States
Royal charters have not been issued in the US since independence. Those that existed prior to that have the same force as other charters of incorporation issued by state or colonial legislatures. Following Dartmouth College v. Woodward, they are "in the nature of a contract between the state, the corporation representing the founder, and the objects of the charity". Case law indicates that they cannot be changed by legislative action in a way that impairs the original intent of the founder, even if the corporation consents.
See also
Congressional charter, equivalent document in the United States
References
External links
Royal charters page on the Privy Council website
Research briefing from the House of Lords library on Royal Charters and Parliamentary Scrutiny
British monarchy
Monarchy in Canada
Monarchy in Australia
Monarchy in New Zealand
Medieval charters and cartularies
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Essen Minster (German: ), since 1958 also Essen Cathedral () is the seat of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Essen, the "Diocese of the Ruhr", founded in 1958. The church, dedicated to Saints Cosmas and Damian and the Blessed Virgin Mary, stands on the Burgplatz in the centre of the city of Essen, Germany.
The minster was formerly the collegiate church of Essen Abbey, founded in about 845 by Altfrid, Bishop of Hildesheim, around which the city of Essen grew up. The present building, which was reconstructed after its destruction in World War II, is a Gothic hall church, built after 1275 in light-coloured sandstone. The octagonal westwork and the crypt are survivors of the Ottonian pre-Romanesque building that once stood here. The separate Church of St. Johann Baptist stands at the west end of the minster, connected to the westwork by a short atrium – it was formerly the parish church of the abbey's subjects. To the north of the minster is a cloister that once served the abbey.
Essen Minster is noted for its treasury (Domschatz), which among other treasures contains the Golden Madonna, the oldest fully sculptural figure of Mary north of the Alps.
Usage history
Foundation to 1803
From the foundation of the first church until 1803, Essen Minster was the Abbey church of Essen Abbey and the hub of abbey life. The church was neither a parish church, nor a cathedral church, but primarily served the nuns of the abbey. Its position was therefore comparable to a convent church, but a more worldly version, since the nuns at Essen did not obey the Benedictine Rule, but the Institutio sanctimonialium the canonical rule for female monastic communities, issued in 816 by the Aachen Synod. The canonical hours and masses of the order occurred in the Minster, as well as prayers for deceased members of the community, the noble sponsors of the order and their ancestors.
The number of nuns from the nobility which the church served varied over the centuries between about seventy during the order's heydey under the Abbess Mathilde in the tenth century and three in the sixteenth century. The church was open to the dependents of the order and the people of the city of Essen only on the high feast days. Otherwise the Church of St. Johann Baptist, which had developed out of the Ottonian baptistry, or the Church of St Gertrude (now the Market Church) served as their place of worship.
The Reformation had no effect on the Minster. The burgers of the city of Essen, who maintained a long-standing dispute with the order about whether the city was a Free city or belonged to the order, mostly joined the revolution, but the Abbesses and Canons of the order (and therefore the church buildings) remained Catholic. The Protestant burgers of the city took over St Gertrude's Church, the present-day Market Church, which was not connected to the Abbey's buildings, while the burgers who remained Catholic continued to use the Church of St. Johann Baptist, located in the Abbey complex, as their parish church. The nuns continued to use the Minster.
From 1803 to the present day
In 1803, Essen Abbey was mediatized by the Kingdom of Prussia. The Minster and all its property was immediately taken over by the parish community of St. Johann Baptist. For the next 150 years the church was their parish church. The name Minster church, which had become established, was retained even though the order no longer existed. As parish church, it served the Catholics of Essen's inner city area which significantly increased in population in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Though the first aspirations of setting up a bishopric of the Ruhr were dashed in the 1920s, a new bishopric was formed in 1958 from parts of the dioceses of Münster, Paderborn, and Cologne and Essen Minster was made the cathedral. On 1 January 1958 the first Bishop of Essen, Franz Hengsbach was consecrated by the Nuncio Aloisius Joseph Muench. Since then Essen Minster has been the religious heart of the diocese. The visit of Pope John Paul II in 1987 marked the high point of the Minster's thousand-year history.
Structural history
Previous buildings
The site of the cathedral was already settled before the foundation of the Abbey. The Bishop of Hildesheim, Altfrid (r.847-874) is supposed to have founded the order of nuns on his estate, called Asnide (i.e. Essen). A direct attestation of Asnide has not yet been found. But from postholes, Merovingian pottery sherds and burials found near the Minster, it can be concluded that a settlement was in place before the foundation of the Abbey.
The first church
The modern Essen Minster is the third church building on this site. Foundation walls of its predecessors were excavated in 1952 by Walter Zimmermann. The first church on this site was erected by the founders of Essen Abbey, Bishop Altfrid and Gerswid, according to tradition the first abbess of the order, between 845 and 870. The building was a three aisled basilica with a west-east orientation. Its central and side aisles already approached the width of the later churches on the site. West of the nave was a small, almost square narthex. The arms of the transeptsmet at a rectangular crossing, which was the same height as the nave. Rooms in the east ends of the side aisle were accessible only from the arms of the transepts. It is uncertain whether these rooms were the same height as the side aisles, as Zimmerman thought on the basis of his excavations or the height of the sidechoir, as in Lange's more recent reconstruction. East of the crossing was the choir with a semicircular end, with the rooms that are accessible from the transepts on either side of it.
This first church was destroyed in a fire in 946, which is recorded in the Cologne Annals Astnide cremabatur (Essen burnt down).
The early Ottonian Abbey
Several dedicatory inscriptions for parts of the new church survive from the years 960 to 964, from which it can be concluded that the fire of 946 had only damaged the church. No inscriptions survive for the nave and choir, which were probably retained from the earlier church. The individual stages of construction are uncertain; some parts could have been begun or even completed before the fire. Taking advantage of necessary renovations to expand the church enclosure was not unusual. The new parts, presumably built at the order of the abbesses Agana and Hathwig, were an outer crypt, a westwork and a narthex and an external chapel of St John the Baptist. This building can be reconstructed from archaeological finds and did not have a long existence, because a new church was erected, perhaps under the art loving Abbess Mathilde, but maybe only under Abbess Theophanu (r. 1039–1058). Possibly, a new building was begun under Mathilde and completed under Theophanu. Significant portions survive from the new Ottonian building.
The new Ottonian church
The expansion of the new Ottonian building was predetermined by its two predecessors. The greater part of the foundations were reused; only in locations where the stresses were increased or the floorplan differed were new foundations laid.
The new building also had three aisles with a transept and a choir shaped like the earlier choirs. A crypt was now built below the choir. The choir was closed with a semi-circular apse, which was encased within a half decagon. A two-story outer crypt was connected to the choir, the west walls of which formed the east walls of the side choirs. Towers next to the altar room gave direct access to the crypt. The near choirs contained matronea, which were open to the transepts and the main choir. the outer walls of the ends of the transepts were made two stories high, with the upstairs portion composed of three niches with windows. On the ground floor were niches, and the pattern of niches continued on the side walls. A walkway ran along the walls above these niches, leading to the matroneum galleries. The double bay between the westwork and the nave was maintained. The structure of the nave walls is unknown, but reconstructions based on other churches, especially Susteren Abbey which appears to draw from the new Ottonian church in many aspects, assume an interchange of piers and columns. There were probably wall paintings between the arcades and the windows on the walls, since remains of wall paintings have been found in the westwork. Outside, the clerestory of the nave had a structure of pilasters and volute capitals, probably with twelve windows.
Westwork
The belief that the unknown architect of Essen Abbey church was one of the best architects of his time is based particularly on the westwork, which even today is the classic view of the church. As in the earlier churches, the westwork is only a little wider than the aisles of the nave. From the outside, the westwork appears as an almost square central tower crowned by an octagonal belfry with a pyramidal roof. At the west end there were two octagonal side towers, containing staircases to the belfry, which reached to just below the bell story of the belfry. The bell story of the central tower and the uppermost stories of the side towers have arched windows. Two story side rooms with arched windows on the upper floor are attached to the north and south sides of the central tower. On the ground floor of these side rooms, doors set in niches lead into the church – the central entrance of the earlier church was abandoned and a large, round-arched window installed in its place. With that, the westwork ceased to operate as a processional entrance to the church. Instead, the squat structure offered an optical counterpoint to the massive east part of the building.
From the outside the westwork appears to be composed of three towers, which envelop the west choir, which takes the form of a crossing which has been divided in half. No similar structure is known. There is a west choir in the central room in the shape of a half-hexagon, surrounded by a passageway. A flat niche is located in the middle of the west wall, with the entrances to the two side towers in flat niches on either side of it. The westwork opens toward the double bay through a large arch supported by pillars. An altar dedicated to Saint Peter stands in the west choir in front of this arch. The walls follow the model of the west choir of Aachen Cathedral in their construction, which also has the use of the octagon as a belfry in common. On the ground floor there are three arches divided by hexagonal pillars. There are two levels of arch openings of the upper level in colonnades, with recycled ancient capitals on the columns.
The westwork was richly decorated, with the Last Judgement painted from the half-cupola to the nave. The painting shows the appearance of Jesus to (it has been concluded) the commissioner of the painting, the Abbess Theophanu (whose name is from the Greek for Divine apparition)
Crypt
Through the installation of the crypt, the floor of the main (east) choir was raised above the floor level of the nave and transepts. The side choirs remained on the same level as the nave and transepts. The crypt consists of the three aisled crypt of Agana, an inner crypt, and a five-sided outer crypt. The entrance to the inner crypt was from east side of the side choir, through which one passed into the outer crypt. The outer crypt had square and elongated rectangular vaults, separated by delicate square pillars. The three central vaults in the east were especially accentuated. Along the east wall in the two side vaults were semicircular niches. In the central vault was a small choir with three niches. The engaged pillars of the east wall of the outer pillar have sandstone plates on which 9 September 1051 is given as the date of the crypt's consecration. There are relics in the altars of the crypt.
Later construction
A short time after the completion of the Ottonian church, the atrium was renovated, probably under Suanhild, the successor of the Abbess Theophanu. In 1471, the atrium was reduced with the renovation and expansion of the church of St. Johann Baptist, which served as the baptismal and parish church of the abbey's subjects. Otherwise the atrium probably retains the form established between 1060 and 1080.
The next extension of the church complex was an attachment to the southern transept in the twelfth century. The upper floor of this very large building contained the sectarium, where the order's papers and acts were kept and which also served as the treasury chamber. Underneath it was the open hall, which was closed at a later time and was used for judicial purposes by the court. This building is now part of the Essen Cathedral Treasury Chamber.
Gothic Hall church
In 1275, the Ottonian church burnt down, with only the westwork and the crypt surviving. In the rebuild, which occurred in the time of the Abbesses Berta von Arnsberg and Beatrix von Holte, the architect combined aspects of the old church with the new Gothic style. The form of the hall church was chosen, in complete contrast with Cologne Cathedral – the Essen order had to ward off the Archbishop of Cologne's claims to authority and the nuns wished to express their integrity and independence through the form of their building. Two architects worked alongside each other on the rebuild, of which the first, a Master Martin, quit in 1305 because of disputes with Abbess Beatrix von Holte. Master Martin, who was a church builder from Burgundy and Champagne, as shown by details of his ornamentation, also knew the design idiom of Cologne and Trier cathedral construction workshops, was responsible for the overall design. This included at first a long choir like that of St Vitus' Church, Mönchengladbach. Afterwards this concept was given up under the management of Master Martin and a hall church inspired by St. Elizabeth's Church, Marburg (begun 1235) was built, which was built over the outer crypt. The successor to Master Martin's name is not known. His design idiom is more strongly Westphalian, but he continued the plan of his predecessor and brought it to completion.
The original, shallow roofs of the octagon and the side towers were replaced with steeper caps; the side towers were also raised by a story. The Gothic church gained a tower above the crossing. The cloister was also expanded. The whole new building was consecrated on the 8th of July, probably of 1316. The 8th of July is celebrated to this day as the Minster's anniversary.
Later alterations
In the eighteenth century, the church was baroquified. The tower over the crossing was replaced with a narrow flèche. The windows of the south side of the cathedral were widened and lost their gothic tracery. The steep roofs of the westwork were replaced with baroque onion domes and the bell story received a clock. In the interior a large part of the old interior decoration was removed and replaced, so that only a few pieces of the gothic decoration have survived, which are no longer in their proper context.
In 1880 the fashionable view of the gothic as the uniquely German architectural style reached Essen and the baroque additions were undone, as far as possible. The westwork returned to its previous appearance, when Essen architect and art historian Georg Humann was able to effect its gothicisation. The baroque interior decoration was also removed; a side altar is now employed as the high altar of the adoration church of St. Johann Baptist in front of the Minster. Some saint statues are found there, others in the Cathedral Treasury Chamber. The decoration made to replace the baroque pieces fell victim to the Second World War, so that little of it now survives. During the renovation of 1880 the church also received its current roofing design and a neo-gothic flèche on the crossing.
War damage and rebuilding
On the night of the 5th and 6 March 1943, 442 aircraft of the Royal Air Force carried out a raid on the city of Essen, which was important to the German war effort because of the Krupp steel works. In less than an hour, 137,000 incendiary bombs and 1,100 explosive bombs were dropped on the central city. The Minster caught fire and suffered heavy damage – the oldest parts of the building, the westwork and the crypt were less heavily damaged. The decision to rebuild was made unanimously in the first meeting of the city council organised by them after the city's occupation by allied troops, under the communist mayor Heinz Renner. The war damage also enabled extensive archaeological excavations to be carried out in the church by Walter Zimmermann. These provided a large amount of information about the predecessors of the modern church and about the burials in the church.
The rebuilding was begun in 1951 and proceeded apace. By 1952 the westwerk and the nave were usable once more and the rest of the church was rebuilt by 1958. Even the northside of the cloisters, which had collapsed in the nineteenth century, was repaired. The neo-gothic flèche from the previous century was replaced by a narrower, lightning-proof flèche, completing the modern external appearance of the church. The completely repaired church became the seat of the newly founded Diocese of Essen in 1958.
Recent changes
The abbey never grew beyond the limits of the Ottonian church. The transformation into a cathedral made a new expansion necessary. Cardinal Franz Hengsbach, the first bishop, said during his lifetime that he wished to make use of his right to be buried within his cathedral church, but not in the Ottonian crypt with Saint Altfrid. In order to fulfill this wish, a west crypt with an entrance in the old westwerk was installed under the atrium between 1981 and 1983 by the cathedral architect Heinz Bohmen and decorated with cast concrete sculpture by . In this Adveniat crypt, whose name reflects the fact that Cardinal Hengsbach was a co-founder of the episcopal charity , the remains of a canon who had been buried in the atrium in the Middle Ages and discovered during the excavations was buried and in 1991 the cardinal was interred there as well.
On 10 October 2004, the newly built south side chapel was dedicated to the memory and veneration of Nikolaus Groß, who was beatified in 2001.
Measurements
The whole church, together with the church of St. Johann Baptist on the front is 90 metres long. Its width varies between 24 and 31 metres at the transepts at the start of the Cathedral treasury. The height varies also:
The volume of the Minster is roughly 45,000 m³, volume of the masonry is about 10,000 m³. The building weighs roughly 25,000 tonnes.
Fittings
As a result of the baroquification of the eighteenth century, the re-gothificisation of the nineteenth century and the war damage of the twentieth century, there are only a few pieces of the earlier fittings of the Minster, but some remains of great significance do survive. The interior is comparatively simple, especially in its architecture, whose subtle beauty is overlooked by many visitors because the lustre of the two very important medieval artworks of the Cathedral outshines it.
Cathedral Treasury
The Minster possesses a Cathedral Treasury, which is open to the public. The most important treasure of the church, the Golden Madonna, has been found in the northern side chapel since 1959. This is the oldest fully sculptured statue of Mary, the patron saint of the diocese, in the world. The 74 cm high figure of gilded poplar, dates from the period of the abbess Mathilde and depicts Mary as a heavenly queen, holding power over the Earth on behalf of her son. The figure, which was originally carried in processions, was probably placed in Essen because of Mathilde's relationship to the Ottonian dynasty. The figure, which is more than a thousand years old, was comprehensively restored in 2004.
In the centre of the westwork the monumental seven-arm candelabrum now stands, which the Abbess Mathilde had made between 973 and 1011. The candelabrum, 2.26 metres high with a span of 1.88 metres is composed of 46 individual cast bronze pieces. The candelabrum symbolises the unity of the Trinity and the Earth with its four cardinal points and the idea of Christ as the light of the World, which will lead the believers home at the Last Judgement (Book of Revelation).
Other remarkable items in the Cathedral treasury include the so-called Childhood Crown of Otto III, four Ottonian processional crosses, the long-revered Sword of Saints Cosmas and Damian, the cover of the Theophanu Gospels, several gothic arm-reliquaries, the largest surviving collection of Burgundian fibulae in the world and the Great Carolingian Gospels.
Column of Ida
The oldest surviving fitting in the Minster is the column in the choir, which now supports a modern crucifix. Until the fifteenth century it supported a cross coated with a gilt copper sheet, from which the donation plate and probably other remains in the Cathedral treasury were made. The Latin inscription ISTAM CRUCEM (I)DA ABBATISSA FIERI IUSSIT (Abbess Ida ordered this cross to be made) allows the creator to be identified with the Essen Abbess Ida, who died in 971, though the sister of Abbess Theophanu, Ida, Abbess of St. Maria im Kapitol in Cologne has also been suggested. The column itself is probably ancient spolia, going by fluted pedestal and the Attic basis of the column. The capital was carved in antiquity, though exceptionally richly carved for that period. Stylistically it is related to the capitals of the west end and the crypt, as well as those of the Ludgeridan crypt of Werden Abbey and those of St Lucius' Church in Essen-Werden.
Altfrid's grave monument
In the east crypt there is a limestone gothic church monument of the Bishop of Hildesheim and founder of Essen, Altfrid, which dates to around 1300 and was probably built under Abbess Beatrix von Holte. This dating is based on the striking similarity of the tomb to saints' graves at Cologne, especially the grave of St. Irmgard in Cologne Cathedral.
Further artworks
The sandstone sculptural group, called the "Entombment of Christ" (Grablegung Christi) in the southern side chapel is from the late Gothic period. The unknown Cologne Master who created it in the first quarter of the sixteenth century is known by the notname Master of the Carben Monument. Another sculpture from the early sixteenth century is the sculpture of the Holy Helper, Saint Roch on the north wall of the Minster, created shortly after 1500.
The baroque period is represented in Essen Minster by two epitaphs. The older, for Abbess Elisabeth von Bergh-s’Heerenberg who died in 1614, contains significant Renaissance elements. This plaque made of black marble in Antwerp is found on the north wall, east of the side bay and shows the Abbess in her official outfit, surrounded by the coats of arms of her ancestors. The second epitaph is that of the Abbess Anna Salome von Salm-Reifferscheidt, which is attributed to Johann Mauritz Gröninger and is found on the north wall of the organ loft.
Because of the war damage, the Minster has no medieval windows. But among the modern artworks Essen Cathedral Chapter commissioned during the rebuild, were new windows for the church and modern sacral art, which was to be in harmony with the older elements of the building. The window of St Michael and the windows of the gallery are by Heinrich Campendonk, the choir windows by Ludwig Gies, those of the nave by Wilhelm Buschulte and the windows of the crypt are by Alfred Manessier. The altar frieze is the work of sculptor Elmar Hillebrand and his student Ronald Hughes. The bronze doors of the atrium and church as well as the frieze depicting the Stations of the Cross in the nave are the work of the Austrian artist .
Organ
The minster's new organ was inaugurated in 2004. It was built by the renowned organbuilder Rieger of Schwarzach, which was founded by Franz Rieger. The instrument consists of two organs, and has 69 stops altogether (5,102 pipes, 95 organ stops).
The main instrument is located in the choir loft. It has 57 stops in 3 manual divisions and a pedal division, and it has a fourth manual on which the auxiliary organ can be played.
The auxiliary organ is located in the west part of the cathedral. It has three manual divisions with ten stops and a pedal division with two stops, and has a significant role in producing sound in the rear region of the Cathedral. Its high pressure and bombard stops are for special solo effects. The three manual divisions can be played on the fourth manual of the main console, and each can also be coupled separately to its other manuals.
Bells
There are bells in the belfry of the westwork and also in the flèche over the crossing. The ringing of the Minster is expanded tonally by the ringing of the attached church of St. Johann Baptist, whose bells, cast in 1787, are not tonally matched to the somewhat older bells of the Minster, so that when they ring together there is a slight musical impurity.
There are three large bells in the westwork. The oldest bell was already in place at the end of the thirteenth century. It bears the inscription CHRISTUM DE LIGNO CLAMANTEM DUM SONO SIGNO (When I sound, I signal that Christ calls from the cross). By its construction it is an early gothic three chime bell. The Marybell is the largest of the bells. It bears a longer inscription saying that it was cast in 1546. The bell was cast in Essen itself, in the modern Burgplatz. The third bell in the westwork lacks an inscription, but its shape marks it as fourteenth century.
The flèche holds three more bells, two of which were cast in 1955 by the bell founders Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock of Gescher, who thereby brought their foundry back to the bell making tradition, since their foundry had cast the bells of St. Johann Baptist in 1787. These two bells are inscribed Ave Maria Trösterin 1955 (Hail Mary, Counselor, 1955) and Ave Maria Königin 1955 (Hail Mary, Queen, 1955). The third bell in the flèche bears the inscription WEI GOT WEL DEINEN DEI BIDDE VOR DE KRESTEN SEELEN AN 1522 (He who serves God well prays for the Christian souls, Y(ear) of O(ur Lord) 1522).
Cathedral chapter
Essen Cathedral chapter includes six resident and four non-resident Cathedral capitular vicars under the oversight of the Cathedral provost. At present two of the resident positions are vacant and one of the non-resident positions.
Under the Concordat of 1929 the right to elect the bishop was given to the chapter, alongside their existing duties concerned with liturgical celebrations in the high church, selection of a Diocesan administrator, advising and supporting the bishop in the government of the diocese and management of the Cathedral Treasury.
Since 2005, the Cathedral provost has been the civic dean of Essen, Prelate Otmar Vieth, as successor of Günter Berghaus who went into retirement after heading the Cathedral chapter for eleven years from 1993 to 2004.
References
Notes
Sources
Leonhard Küppers: Das Essener Münster. Fredebeul & Koenen, Essen 1963.
Klaus Lange: Der gotische Neubau der Essener Stiftskirche, in: Reform – Reformation -Säkularisation. Frauenstifte in Krisenzeiten. Klartext Verlag Essen 2004
Klaus Lange: Die Krypta der Essener Stiftskirche. in: Essen und die sächsischen Frauenstifte im Frühmittelalter. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2003, .
Klaus Lange: Der Westbau des Essener Doms. Architektur und Herrschaft in ottonischer Zeit, Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Münster 2001, .
Albert Rinken: Die Glocken des Münsters und der Anbetungskirche in: Münster am Hellweg 1949, S. 95ff.
Josef Schueben: Das Geläut der Münsterkirche in: Münster am Hellweg 1956, S. 16ff.
Walter Zimmermann: Das Münster zu Essen. Düsseldorf 1956.
External links
Essen Cathedral website
Diocese of Essen website
Münsterbauverein website
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The Seattle Storm is an American professional basketball team based in Seattle, Washington. The Storm competes in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The team was founded by Ginger Ackerley and her husband Barry ahead of the 2000 season. The team is currently owned by Force 10 Hoops LLC, which is composed of three Seattle businesswomen: Dawn Trudeau, Lisa Brummel, and Ginny Gilder.
The Storm have qualified for the WNBA Playoffs in sixteen of its twenty-one years in Seattle. The franchise has been home to many high-quality players such as former UConn stars Sue Bird, Swin Cash, and Breanna Stewart; 2004 Finals MVP Betty Lennox; and Australian power forward Lauren Jackson, a three-time league MVP. The Storm are four-time WNBA Champions, with victories in 2004, 2010, 2018, and 2020. They are one of two teams who have never lost a WNBA Finals, the defunct Houston Comets being the other.
The team cultivates a fan-friendly, family environment at home games by having an all-kid dance squad, which leads young fans in a conga line on the court during time-outs, to the music of "C'mon N' Ride It (The Train)" by the Quad City DJ's. Named for the rainy weather of Seattle, the team uses many weather-related icons: the team mascot is Doppler, a maroon-furred creature with a cup anemometer on its head; the theme song for Storm home games is AC/DC's "Thunderstruck"; and its newsletter is called Stormwatch.
The Storm were the sister team of the Seattle SuperSonics of the NBA prior to February 28, 2008, when the team was sold to Force 10 Hoops LLC.
Franchise history
A gloomy start (2000–2001)
The Storm's predecessor was the Seattle Reign, a charter member of the American Basketball League (ABL), operating from 1996 through December 1998, when the league folded. Luckier than most localities that had an ABL team, Seattle was quickly awarded a WNBA franchise and began to play less than two years later.
The Seattle Storm would tip off their first season (the 2000 WNBA season) in typical expansion fashion. Coached by Lin Dunn and led by guard Edna Campbell and Czech center Kamila Vodichkova, the team finished with a 6–26 record. The low record, however, allowed the Storm to draft a 19-year-old Australian standout Lauren Jackson. Though Seattle did not make the playoffs in the 2001 season, Jackson's impressive rookie performance provided a solid foundation for the franchise to build on.
Sue Bird's arrival and the road to the WNBA Finals (2002–2004)
In the 2002 draft, the Storm drafted UConn star Sue Bird, filling the Storm's gap at the point guard position. With Bird's playmaking ability and Jackson's scoring and rebounding, the team made the playoffs for the first time in 2002 but were swept by the Los Angeles Sparks.
Coach Anne Donovan was hired for the 2003 campaign. In Donovan's first year, Jackson would win the WNBA Most Valuable Player Award, but the team had a disappointing season (with Bird injured for much of the year), and the Storm missed the playoffs.
The 2004 Storm posted a then franchise-best 20–14 record. In the playoffs, the Storm made quick work of the Minnesota Lynx, sweeping them in the first round. The Storm then squared off against an up-and-coming Sacramento Monarchs team in the West Finals. The Storm would emerge victorious, winning the series 2–1. In the WNBA Finals, the Storm would finish off the season as champions, defeating the Connecticut Sun 2 games to 1. Betty Lennox was named MVP of the Finals. The win made Anne Donovan the first female head coach in WNBA history to win the WNBA Championship.
A consistent postseason contender (2005–2009)
Key players from the Storm's championship season were not on the team in 2005. Vodichkova, Tully Bevilaqua, and Sheri Sam moved on to other teams. Also, the pre-season injury of Australian star and new acquisition Jessica Bibby hampered the team's 2005 season. While they matched their 2004 record and made the playoffs, the Storm's title defense was stopped in the first round by the Houston Comets, 2 games to 1.
In 2006, the Storm would finish 18–16, good enough to make the playoffs. The Storm put up a good fight in the first round against the Sparks but would fall short 2–1. In 2007, the Storm would finish .500 (17–17), good enough to make the playoffs in a weak Western Conference. The Storm would be quickly swept out of the playoffs by the Phoenix Mercury.
On November 30, 2007, Anne Donovan resigned as head coach, and was replaced by Brian Agler on January 9, 2008.
Although most of Seattle's major sports teams endured poor seasons during 2008, the Storm would be the only standout team in Seattle that year, posting a franchise-best 22–12 record and finishing with a 16–1 record at home, also a franchise-best. But the No. 2 seeded Storm lost to the #3 Los Angeles Sparks in the first round of the playoffs in three games and ended Seattle's season at 23–14 overall.
In 2009, the Storm were 20–14 and finished second in the Western Conference for the second straight year. In the playoffs, the Storm again lost to the #3 Los Angeles Sparks in 3 games, which ended their season in the first round for the fifth consecutive season.
A second championship (2010)
In the 2010 season, the Storm was almost unstoppable with a record-tying 28 wins and 6 losses in the regular season, including a perfect 17–0 at KeyArena. This was the most home wins in the history of the WNBA.
Along the way, Lauren Jackson was named WNBA Western Conference Player of the Week five times, and Western Conference Player of the Month three times, on her way to being named WNBA MVP for the third time. Agler was also named Coach of the Year.
In the playoffs, the Storm dramatically reversed their fortunes from the previous five seasons. They started with a sweep of the Sparks, the team that previously knocked them out of the playoffs every time they met. Then they swept Diana Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury in the conference finals, and the Atlanta Dream in the WNBA Finals. With two league championships, the Storm became Seattle's most successful pro sports team by that measure.
Postseason pains (2011–2014)
With the same lineup as the previous year, the Storm had much expectation for the 2011 WNBA season. But right in the second round a two-year home invincibility was broken by the Minnesota Lynx, who even left the Storm scoreless for the first seven minutes. Injuries hit multiple players, especially Lauren Jackson, who had to undergo hip surgery and missed most of the season. The regular starting five resumed play only in the last five games, but Sue Bird and Swin Cash kept the Storm competitive, finishing second in the WNBA with 21 wins and 13 losses. On the playoffs, a Mercury buzzer beater at the KeyArena eliminated the Storm in round 1.
In 2012, with Jackson absent for the early season training with the Australia national team and injuries to most of the team, including Bird, only Camille Little and Katie Smith played on all the games of the regular season. Upon her return, Jackson missed some games due to a hamstring injury but reached 6,000 points on her WNBA career playing against the San Antonio Silver Stars. The 16-18 record put the Storm fourth in the West, facing the Lynx, who posted the league's best record during the regular season, in the playoffs. While the Storm managed to force a game 3 by winning in the KeyArena at double overtime, a last-second attempt by Jackson went off the rim and the Lynx took the series-winning by just one point, 73-72.
After losing in the first round of the 2013 playoffs to the Lynx following a .500 regular season, the Storm missed the playoffs in 2014. This was the first time the Storm missed the playoffs since 2003.
Loyd/Stewart Era, third and fourth championships (2015–present)
Following seven-year head coach & GM Brian Agler's hiring in Los Angeles, the Storm elevated President Alisha Valavanis to President & GM, and two weeks later, hired Jenny Boucek as the fourth head coach in franchise history. Valavanis and Boucek promptly got to work, trading Shekinna Stricklen and Camille Little to the Connecticut Sun for the #3 and #15 2015 WNBA draft picks, along with Renee Montgomery. Storm free agent Tanisha Wright signed with the New York Liberty, and a month later, Valavanis shipped the #15 pick to the Mystics for Quanitra Hollingsworth and the #20 pick in the 2015 WNBA Draft. Valavanis also signed Australian forward Abby Bishop that month.
Fast forward to April 2015, the month of the WNBA Draft, where Seattle now held the #1, #3, #20 and #26 picks. Days before the draft, Notre Dame guard Jewell Loyd and Minnesota center Amanda Zahui B. shook up the draft order, both forgoing NCAA eligibility and declaring for the WNBA Draft. On April 16, 2015, Seattle drafted Jewell Loyd #1, UCONN sharpshooter Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis #3, Vicky McIntyre #20 and Nneka Enemkpali #26 in the 2015 WNBA Draft. In the 2015 WNBA season, despite missing out on the playoffs with a 10-24 record, the number-one drafted Jewell Loyd would win the Rookie of the Year Award.
After having the worst record in the WNBA, the Storm ended up with the first overall pick again using it to select Breanna Stewart from the University of Connecticut. In the 2016 WNBA season, Stewart immediately emerged as one of the young rising stars in the league, winning Rookie of the Year, averaged an impressive 18.9 ppg and broke the record for most defensive rebounds in a regular season. Loyd would statistically improve, averaging 16.5 ppg, birthing a new, young dynamic tandem as the "Next Great Storm Duo" after Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson. This would lead the Storm back into playoff contention as they finished as the 6th seed with a 16-18 record under the league's new playoff format, but would lose to the Atlanta Dream in the first round elimination game.
In the 2017 season, both Loyd and Stewart continued to get better and lead the Storm into playoff contention. Loyd averaged 17.7 ppg and Stewart 19.9 ppg. Stewart would become an all-star for the first time in her career and was one of two all-stars representing the Storm in the 2017 WNBA All-Star Game along with Sue Bird. The Storm finished as the 8th seed with a 15-19 record but would lose yet again in the first round elimination game by the Phoenix Mercury.
In the 2018 season, the Storm would elevate from a mediocre playoff team to a title contender. In the offseason, they made some slight changes to the roster. They traded for Natasha Howard and drafted Jordin Canada. Bird, Loyd, and Stewart were all voted into the 2018 WNBA All-Star Game, creating a "big three" on the Storm's roster. Bird also broke records in 2018 by becoming the franchise leader in scoring and the league's all-time regular-season assists leader. With Bird's leadership and the continued development of Loyd and Stewart, the Storm finished 26-8 with the number 1 seed headed into the WNBA Playoffs. They would receive a double-bye to the semi-finals. Stewart who averaged 20.0 ppg and 8.8 RPG won the 2018 Most Valuable Player award. They faced the Phoenix Mercury in the semi-finals where Stewart averaged 24.0 ppg and Loyd added 11.0 ppg. They would defeat the Mercury in a hard-fought five-game series, advancing to the WNBA Finals for the first time since 2010. In the Finals, the Storm would sweep their opponent, the Washington Mystics, winning their first championship in eight years, Stewart was named Finals MVP.
Even before the season started, 2019 was a year defined by health issues for the Storm. On April 15, Stewart ruptured her Achilles tendon playing in a Euroleague game for Dynamo Kursk when she collided with Brittany Griner, putting her out for the entire 2019 season. Four days later, head coach Dan Hughes was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his colon; he had it removed in May and missed the entire season, with assistant Gary Kloppenburg taking over in an interim role Later that month, after the Storm finished their preseason schedule, it was announced that Bird would have to undergo knee surgery, sidelining her too for the year.
With Bird out, Canada stepped into the starting point guard role, finishing 2019 third in the WNBA in assists per game (5.5) and second in steals per game (2.3). Meanwhile, without Stewart an with Loyd missing seven games with an injury of her own, Howard became the focal point of the Seattle offense, scoring a career-high 18.1 points per game. The shorthanded Storm finished the season 18-16, earning the No. 6 seed in the 2019 WNBA playoffs. Seattle won its first-round matchup against the Minnesota Lynx, 84-74, and then lost in the second round to the Los Angeles Sparks, 92-69.
The 2020 WNBA season was atypical, played entirely inside Bradenton, Florida's IMG Academy, dubbed the "wubble," the WNBA's version of the NBA's Bubble. The Storm entered the wubble with Bird and Stewart back, but without head coach Dan Hughes, whose cancer diagnosis made him a health risk. Bird missed several games with a left knee bone bruise, but came back for the playoffs, in which the Storm didn't lose a single game. The Storm closed out the top-ranked Las Vegas Aces in three games en route to their fourth championship, with Stewart again named Finals MVP.
Name, logo and team colors
The Storm's name was chosen because of Seattle's reputation as a rainy city, as well as the aggressive nature implicit in the name. Though the team conducted an exhaustive trademark search for options, Storm was always their preferred choice. The name had once been trademarked by an amateur soccer club, FC Seattle Storm, in the mid-1980s, but by 2000 it was free for the WNBA to take ownership. The team had planned a formal announcement, along with a presentation of the logo and official team colors, at a January 2000 gala event for the inaugural season ticket holders. However, a Miami newspaper revealed the name two weeks early while announcing all four of that season's expansion franchises.
Logo
The original logo featured a rounded, stylized silhouette of the Space Needle, an iconic Seattle landmark, set against the backdrop of a green storm cloud. In dynamic font and fashion, the team name stretches in an angled rise from left to right. Pointed jags meant to evoke lightning bolts streak through the team name from right to left. A basketball orbits the Space Needle through the cloud.
In January 2016, the team revealed a branding update that eliminated the use of red. The team logos retained the same overall design, but used the simplified color scheme.
An alternate logo, which placed the S from the Storm wordmark on a green oval, was used on the team's jerseys on and off until 2020 in place of the more complicated primary mark.
In March 2021, the team released an entirely new logo and updated color scheme. The Space Needle, depicted in a new, more minimalist style, is interlinked with the ribs of a basketball and incorporates a small lightning bolt into the tower. The logo has a pointed shape, meant to evoke Mount Rainier. A sleeker modern font and the new color scheme of dark green, yellow, and bright green are used.
Team colors
Like several early WNBA teams, the Storm was owned by their NBA counterpart, the Seattle SuperSonics, and closely related to the team. Taking their cue from the Sonics' team colors at the time, known colloquially as the "wine and pine" era of the team, the Storm's original team colors were pine green, maroon red, bronze, and white. When a new ownership group led by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz purchased the Sonics and Storm in 2001, the NBA club returned to the traditional green-and-golden yellow color scheme that the team had used for its first 28 years of existence. The Storm, however, retained their colors as a way to uniquely market the team. Following another change of ownership in 2006, the team was then sold to Force 10 Hoops LLC in 2008 when the Oklahoma City interests that owned the Sonics announced intentions to relocate the NBA club to Oklahoma City as the Thunder. Force 10 also retained the original colors.
The January 2016 branding update changed the official team colors. Adopting a scheme similar to their former NBA brother team, the updated colors were thunder green, a less saturated shade than before, and lightning yellow. White and thunder gray featured as accent colors.
The new 2021 design keeps the 2016–2020 colors of lightning yellow and dark thunder green, and replaces gray with the bright bolt green.
Off-court activity
2006 and 2008 sales
Following disagreements between the Basketball Club of Seattle (the former owners of the Sonics and Storm) and the city of Seattle concerning the need to renovate the KeyArena, the Seattle SuperSonics and the Seattle Storm were sold to an Oklahoma City group led by Clay Bennett on July 18, 2006. Bennett made it clear that the Sonics and Storm would move to Oklahoma City at some point after the 2007–08 NBA season, unless an arena for the Sonics was approved by Seattle leaders before October 31, 2007. During this period of uncertainty, the Storm announced that they would play their 2008 WNBA season in Seattle at KeyArena.
On January 8, 2008, Bennett sold the team to a Seattle group of women called Force 10 Hoops, LLC. The sale was given unanimous approval from the WNBA Board of Governors on February 28, 2008. This kept the team in Seattle and disconnected it from the Sonics. The Sonics moved to Oklahoma City in July, during the WNBA season.
Uniform sponsor
On April 21, 2010, the Storm and the WNBA announced a sponsor agreement with Bing, a search engine from Microsoft, to place the company's logo on their jerseys for the 2010 season. The Bing sponsorship ended after the 2013 season, and the Storm played without a sponsor for two seasons, before signing a new uniform deal with Swedish Medical Center for the 2016 season.
Championship ring for President
In June 2011, President of the United States Barack Obama invited the 2010 WNBA champion Seattle Storm to the White House. He stated that the franchise provided a good example for young girls with big dreams. He praised the Storm for the community service they perform and stated that being champions did not end when they step off the court. The Storm presented the President with a championship ring.
Temporary move to the University of Washington
With Climate Pledge Arena to be closed during its renovation into a venue suitable for the Seattle Kraken of the National Hockey League, the Storm were forced to seek a temporary venue for their 2019 season. After considering two suburban venues, ShoWare Center in Kent and Angel of the Winds Arena in Everett, the team announced in August 2018 that its primary home in 2019 would be in the city of Seattle at the University of Washington's Alaska Airlines Arena. While the arena will become the Storm's primary home during the renovation, there was no guarantee of its availability for Storm playoff games, and some home games might be played at other venues in the region, such as Tacoma Dome. Since Washington's arena lacks air conditioning, and the WNBA requires that all games be played in air-conditioned venues, portable air conditioning units will be used during Storm games. The team later announced that five of its 17 regular-season home games in 2019, including the home opener, would be at Angel of the Winds Arena. The 2020 season saw the Storm play their games in Bradenton, FL.
Season-by-season records
Players
Current roster
Former players
Retired numbers
Coaches and staff
Owners
Barry and Ginger Ackerley, owners of the Seattle SuperSonics (2000–2001)
Howard Schultz, owner of the Seattle SuperSonics (2001–2006)
Clay Bennett, owner of the Seattle SuperSonics (2007)
Force 10 Hoops LLC, composed of Dawn Trudeau, Lisa Brummel, Ginny Gilder (2008–present)
Head coaches
General managers
Lin Dunn (2000–2002)
Billy McKinney (2002–2003)
Karen Bryant (2004–2010)
Brian Agler (2011–2014)
Alisha Valavanis (2015–2021)
Talisa Rhea (2021–present)
Records and statistics
Season records
Regular season attendance
A sellout for a basketball game at Climate Pledge Arena is 17,072. For Storm games, reaching capacity of the lower bowl (9,686) is considered a sellout.
A sellout for a basketball game at the team's main home during the renovation of Climate Pledge Arena, Alaska Airlines Arena, is 10,000. A sellout at the team's secondary home, Angel of the Winds Arena, is 8,500.
All-Stars
2000: None
2001: Lauren Jackson
2002: Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson
2003: Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson
2004: Sue Bird
2005: Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson
2006: Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson
2007: Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson
2008: No All-Star Game
2009: Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Lauren Jackson
2010: Sue Bird, Swin Cash, Lauren Jackson
2011: Sue Bird, Swin Cash
2012: No All-Star Game
2013: Tina Thompson
2014: Sue Bird
2015: Sue Bird
2016: No All-Star Game
2017: Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart
2018: Sue Bird, Jewell Loyd, Breanna Stewart
2019: Jewell Loyd, Natasha Howard
2020: No All-Star Game
2021: Sue Bird, Jewell Loyd, Breanna Stewart
Olympians
2004: Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson (AUS)
2008: Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson (AUS), Kelly Santos (BRA)
2012: Sue Bird, Lauren Jackson (AUS)
2016: Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart, Ramu Tokashiki (JPN)
2020: Sue Bird, Jewell Loyd, Breanna Stewart, Stephanie Talbot (AUS), Ezi Magbegor (AUS)
Honors and awards
2002 All-WNBA First Team: Sue Bird
2003 Most Valuable Player: Lauren Jackson
2003 Peak Performer (Scoring): Lauren Jackson
2003 All-WNBA First Team: Sue Bird
2003 All-WNBA First Team: Lauren Jackson
2004 Finals MVP: Betty Lennox
2004 Peak Performer (Scoring): Lauren Jackson
2004 All-WNBA First Team: Sue Bird
2004 All-WNBA First Team: Lauren Jackson
2005 All-WNBA First Team: Sue Bird
2005 All-WNBA First Team: Lauren Jackson
2005 All-Defensive Second Team: Lauren Jackson
2006 All-Decade Team: Sue Bird
2006 All-Decade Team: Lauren Jackson
2006 All-WNBA First Team: Lauren Jackson
2007 Most Valuable Player: Lauren Jackson
2007 Defensive Player of the Year: Lauren Jackson
2007 Peak Performer (Scoring): Lauren Jackson
2007 Peak Performer (Rebounds): Lauren Jackson
2007 All-WNBA First Team: Lauren Jackson
2007 All-Defensive First Team: Lauren Jackson
2008 All-WNBA Second Team: Sue Bird
2008 All-WNBA Second Team: Lauren Jackson
2008 All-Defensive Second Team: Lauren Jackson
2009 All-Star Game MVP: Swin Cash
2009 Peak Performer (Assists): Sue Bird
2009 All-WNBA First Team: Lauren Jackson
2009 All-Defensive First Team: Lauren Jackson
2009 All-Defensive First Team: Tanisha Wright
2010 Most Valuable Player: Lauren Jackson
2010 Finals MVP: Lauren Jackson
2010 Coach of the Year: Brian Agler
2010 All-WNBA First Team: Lauren Jackson
2010 All-WNBA Second Team: Sue Bird
2010 All-Defensive First Team: Tanisha Wright
2010 All-Defensive Second Team: Lauren Jackson
2011 All-Star Game MVP: Swin Cash
2011 Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award: Sue Bird
2011 All-WNBA Second Team: Sue Bird
2011 All-Defensive First Team: Tanisha Wright
2011 All-Defensive Second Team: Swin Cash
2013 All-Defensive First Team: Tanisha Wright
2015 July Rookie of the Month: Jewell Loyd
2015 Rookie of the Year: Jewell Loyd
2015 All-Rookie Team: Jewell Loyd
2015 All-Rookie Team: Ramu Tokashiki
2016 Rookie of the Year: Breanna Stewart
2016 Peak Performer (Assists): Sue Bird
2016 All-Defensive Second Team: Breanna Stewart
2016 All-Rookie Team: Breanna Stewart
2017 Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award: Sue Bird
2018 Most Valuable Player: Breanna Stewart
2018 Most Improved Player: Natasha Howard
2018 Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award: Sue Bird
2018 Finals MVP: Breanna Stewart
2018 All-WNBA First Team: Breanna Stewart
2018 All-Defensive First Team: Natasha Howard
2019 Defensive Player of the Year: Natasha Howard
2019 All-WNBA First Team: Natasha Howard
2019 All-Defensive First Team: Jordin Canada
2019 All-Defensive Second Team: Alysha Clark
2020 Finals MVP: Breanna Stewart
2020 All-WNBA First Team: Breanna Stewart
2020 All-Defensive First Team: Alysha Clark
2020 All-Defensive Second Team: Breanna Stewart
2021 Commissioner's Cup MVP: Breanna Stewart
2021 All-Defensive Second Team: Breanna Stewart
2021 All-WNBA First Team: Jewell Loyd
2021 All-WNBA First Team: Breanna Stewart
Media coverage
Currently, most Storm home games are broadcast on JOEtv, which is a local television station for the area of Seattle. More often than not, NBA TV will pick up the feed from the local broadcast, which is shown nationally. Broadcasters for the Storm games are Dick Fain and Elise Woodward.
All games (excluding blackout games, which are available on ESPN3.com) are broadcast to the WNBA LiveAccess game feeds on the league website. Furthermore, some Storm games are broadcast nationally on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. The WNBA has reached an eight-year agreement with ESPN, which will pay rights fees to the Storm, as well as other teams in the league.
Notes
References
External links
Women's National Basketball Association teams
Sports in Seattle
Basketball teams established in 2000
Basketball teams in Washington (state)
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The following lists events that happened during 2006 in New Zealand.
Population
Estimated population as of 31 December: 4,209,100
Increase since 31 December 2005: 48,200 (1.16%)
Males per 100 Females: 95.8
Incumbents
Regal and viceregal
Head of State – Elizabeth II
Governor-General – Dame Silvia Cartwright, succeeded by Anand Satyanand
Government
The 48th New Zealand Parliament continued. Government was a coalition between
Labour and the Progressives, with
United Future and New Zealand First supporting supply votes. The leaders of the two support parties are ministers outside Cabinet.
Speaker of the House – Margaret Wilson (Labour)
Prime Minister – Helen Clark (Labour)
Deputy Prime Minister – Michael Cullen (Labour)
Minister of Finance – Michael Cullen (Labour)
Non-Labour ministers
Jim Anderton (Progressives) (within Cabinet)
Winston Peters (New Zealand First) – Minister of Foreign Affairs, Racing and Associate Minister of Senior Citizens (outside Cabinet)
Peter Dunne (United Future), Minister of Revenue and Associate Minister of Health (outside Cabinet)
Parliamentary leaders
National (opposition) – Don Brash to 27 November, John Key (Leader of the Opposition)
Greens (opposition) – Jeanette Fitzsimons (to 2 June 2006) and Russel Norman
Act (opposition) – Rodney Hide
New Zealand First – Winston Peters
United Future – Peter Dunne
Māori Party (opposition) – Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples
Judiciary
Chief Justice — Sian Elias
Main centre leaders
Mayor of Auckland – Dick Hubbard
Mayor of Tauranga – Stuart Crosby
Mayor of Hamilton – Michael Redman
Mayor of Wellington – Kerry Prendergast
Mayor of Christchurch – Garry Moore
Mayor of Dunedin – Peter Chin
Events
January
1 January: Changes to New Zealand citizenship laws mean not all babies born in New Zealand have a right to be citizens. Babies must have a parent who is a citizen or permanent resident of New Zealand or its dependencies.
2 January: New Zealand's warm sunny New Year weather has come to a sudden end as gale-force winds and rain assault southern New Zealand. (Wikinews)
7 January:The New Zealand Māori Queen, Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, is undergoing dialysis treatment, the Tainui Tribe confirmed today. The Queen's condition is not believed to be critical. (Wikinews)
9 January: Electricity generator and retailer TrustPower announces that it is considering a wind farm development at Lake Mahinerangi, south of Dunedin. (Wikinews)
13 January: Winston Peters says there is no travel warning for New Zealanders visiting Fiji, although Australia has issued one, after the Fijian military commander threatened to remove the Government.
14 January:The Government announces a review of liquor advertising amidst concern over teenage binge drinking. The review will consider regulating sponsorship of sport by alcohol companies. Lion Nathan says there is no need for change.
15 January: Review of David Lange's documents show that the United States threatened to spy on New Zealand if it did not back down from its 1980s anti-nuclear legislation.
21 January:A Wellington sperm bank refuses to accept a donation from a gay man, apparently to minimise the risk of HIV transmission.
February
1 February: Don Brash, the leader of the New Zealand National Party gave his third state of the nation speech to the Orewa Rotary Club where he focused on the economy. Wikinews
4 February:Two Fairfax-owned newspapers, The Dominion Post and The Christchurch Press, controversially published all 12 cartoons in the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, which have triggered international outrage.
5 February: Hundreds of NZ Muslims march in downtown Auckland in protest to the publication of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. Wikinews
5 February: NZ film director Lee Tamahori is arrested and formally charged with soliciting and unlawfully loitering on Hollywood's Santa Monica Boulevard, while dressed in drag.
6 February: The 166th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's founding document, in 1840. This year the celebrations were peaceful, in contrast to other years where the day was the focus of protest by Māori activists. Wikinews
11 February: Tokelau began voting in a referendum to determine whether it remains a New Zealand territory, or becomes a state in free association with New Zealand.
12 February: The Royal New Zealand Navy's new 9000-tonne Multi-Role Vessel was launched in Rotterdam. The MRV is the largest of seven new ships ordered as part of "Project Protector".
14 February: Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton announced that a draft agreement had been reached with fishing companies to ban bottom trawling in 30 percent of New Zealand's exclusive economic zone. Anderton promised to support a global ban on bottom trawling if that appeared a practical option.
16 February: New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns, ONZM played his final international cricket match against the West Indies in a Twenty20 at Auckland's Eden Park.
16 February: Tokelau decides to remain a New Zealand territory after a referendum on independence. A 60 percent majority voted in favor of independence, but a two-thirds majority was required for the referendum to succeed.
20 February: Air New Zealand is set to lay off another 507 workers as it outsources its wide-body aircraft maintenance. A union proposal to save some of the jobs failed to win a worker vote.
22 February: C4 aired the controversial South Park episode "Bloody Mary", which portrays a statue of the Virgin Mary menstruating, despite protests from religious groups.
23 February: Air New Zealand workers accepted a new employment package in a new vote. About 300 wide-body aircraft maintenance jobs will be saved in Auckland, although 200 will still be made redundant.
24 February:Air New Zealand announced that 470 corporate jobs, mostly in Auckland are to be axed over the next year.
March
6 March: Child Youth and Family is to merge with the Ministry of Social Development.
6 March: Fairfax purchases the New Zealand online auction site Trade Me for NZ$625 million.
7 March: The 2006 New Zealand census is held. For the first time, respondents had the option of completing their census form via the internet rather than by a printed form.
15 March: The 2006 Commonwealth Games opens in Melbourne. New Zealand is represented by 255 athletes, its largest team ever to a Commonwealth Games.
17 March: DoC starts an emergency evacuation of Raoul Island after one of the island's volcanoes erupts. One person is missing.
17 March: A report on Auckland traffic congestion suggests charges of $3–$6 for a vehicle to enter the Auckland isthmus, or a $10 surcharge on all parking in the CBD.
20 March: David Parker resigns as Attorney-General after publicity about an incorrect declaration he filed with the Companies Office. The following day he resigned from Cabinet.
25 March: Restaurant Brands, the franchise holder for KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks, have agreed to phase out youth rates. BP agreed to scrap youth rates earlier.
26 March: In the 2006 Commonwealth Games, New Zealand wins 31 medals, which puts it in 9th place. This is New Zealand's worst performance at a Commonwealth Games since 1982.
28 March: Farmers are unhappy with the new law that all dogs first registered after 1 July 2006 must be microchipped. They want farm dogs to be exempt, and have drawn a parallel to the Dog Tax War of 1898.
29 March: New Zealand's first reported case of ATM Card Skimming was found at BNZ New Lynn.
31 March: Assistant police commissioner Clinton Rickards and two former police officers are found not guilty of the alleged rape and sexual abuse of Louise Nicholas in Rotorua in the 1980s.
April
2 April: The Auckland City Council wins a Pigasus Award for granting $2500 to the Foundation For Spiritualist Mediums "to teach people to communicate with the dead".
3 April: It was announced that Judge Anand Satyanand has been appointed to succeed Dame Silvia Cartwright as The Queen's Governor-General of New Zealand. He will take up office on 4 August 2006.
6 April: The New Zealand Parliament passes an act making New Zealand Sign Language the third official language of New Zealand, alongside English and Māori.
6 April: Helen Clark and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao meet in Wellington and agree to aim for a Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and China within two years.
7 April: Following acquittal of three men in the Louise Nicholas rape trial, pamphlets and emails about two of the defendants are widely circulated in defiance of previous court suppression orders.
10 April: Auckland rises to 5th place behind Zurich and Geneva in a survey of the world's top 55 cities for quality of life. Wellington places 12th.
19 April: The New Zealand Government is to send reinforcements to the Solomon Islands to support RAMSI following an outbreak of violence after the election of Snyder Rini as the new Prime Minister yesterday.
26 April: David Parker is cleared of any misconduct by the Companies Office. He was granted an exemption in 1999 from the rules he had fallen foul of. He is likely to be reinstated to the Cabinet next week.
27 April:The Electricity Commission has rejected Transpower's plan to build a line of power pylons from Auckland to Whakamaru. The plan had drawn protests from landowners along the route.
30 April: Following acquittal of three men in the Louise Nicholas rape trial, several hundred people marched up Queen Street, in support of Louise Nicholas.
May
1 May: Troubles continue at TVNZ, with leaked emails from Craig Boyce to Ian Fraser, referring to the Parliamentary select committee as "the bastards are our enemy".
3 May: The New Zealand Government announces that it will require Telecom to unbundle the local loop to provide "access to fast, competitively priced broadband internet".
13 May: The trawler Kotuku sinks in Foveaux Strait on the way back from muttonbirding. Of the nine people on board, including three generations of one family, only three survive. It is New Zealand's worst maritime disaster since the sinking of .
15 May: After 40 days of climbing, New Zealander Mark Inglis became the first double amputee to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world.
16 May: Michael Ryan, a messenger for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is named as the government employee who leaked the information to Telecom that the government is planning to "unbundle the local loop".
17 May: An attempt by the Green Party to repeal part of a controversial dog microchipping law was voted down 61–60.
18 May: Finance Minister Michael Cullen delivers the 2006 Budget.
24 May: The week-long festivities celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Māori Queen's coronation have ended.
25 May: The three men acquitted of rape in the Louise Nicholas trial now face a new trial for alleged sexual offences against another woman in the mid-1980s.
June
3 June: The Green Party elects Russel Norman as its co-leader to replace Rod Donald.
6 June: The trial of Tim Selwyn for sedition begins in Auckland. Selwyn is the first New Zealander in over 80 years to be charged with sedition.
7 June: The Privy Council agrees to hear David Bain's appeal against his conviction for the murder of his family.
8 June: Tim Selwyn is found guilty of sedition.
8 June: New Zealand has won hosting rights for the 2010 World Rowing Championships, which will be held at Lake Karapiro.
10 June: The family of Richard Seddon remember his death 100 years ago.
10 June: A Yemeni man, linked to the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States, has been deported from New Zealand. It is only the second time that section 72 of the Immigration Act has been used to deport someone. Its use requires the consent of the Governor-General, and there is no right of appeal.
12 June: A blackout hits Auckland, lasting for several hours and affecting an estimated 700,000 people. The cause was found to be an earth wire which snapped off in high winds and fell across high-voltage transmission lines at a substation.
A severe storm lashed the country, bringing heavy snow to Otago and Canterbury Some isolated communities lose power for up to three weeks after the storm. Up to three feet of snow was recorded in inland Canterbury.
15 June: A free-to-air digital television service called Freeview will be launched in 2007. All viewers will require a set-top box, and some will need a satellite dish.
15 June: Junior doctors begin a five-day strike over working hours and conditions. Hospitals defer non-urgent surgery and outpatient treatments.
16 June: The Varroa bee mite has been found near Stoke. The mite arrived in New Zealand in 2000 and has been confined to the North Island until now.
18 June: The deaths of three-month-old twins Chris and Cru Kahui as a result of abuse injuries shocks the nation and dominates headlines for months.
21 June: Working dogs have been exempted from the dog microchipping legislation currently before Parliament.
27 June: Telecom announces it will voluntarily separate its business into two operating entities – Wholesale and Retail.
29 June: Development of the Kupe gas and oil field off the Taranaki coast will go ahead, with production beginning in 2009.
30 June: Tame Iti is sentenced to pay $300 and court costs for shooting the New Zealand Flag.
July
2 July: The Intellectual Property Office has turned down an application by Ngāti Toa to trademark Ka Mate, the haka used by the All Blacks.
3 July: Police Minister Annette King and Police Commissioner Howard Broad both deny that New Zealand Police have quotas for speeding tickets after a memo about such quotas is leaked.
4 July:An Italian Fiat advert draws criticism from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for having women perform the haka.
10 July: Labour List MP Jim Sutton announces he is leaving politics on 1 August 2006. He will be replaced by the next member of the Labour Party list, Charles Chauvel.
11 July: Te Atairangi Kaahu, the Māori Queen, is taken to Waikato Hospital's intensive care unit after a possible heart attack and kidney failure.
18 July: Tim Selwyn is sentenced to 2 months imprisonment for sedition in Auckland. He is also sentenced to a further 15 months for other offenses.
18 July: Former Cabinet Minister Taito Phillip Field is cleared of any conflict of interest by an inquiry into allegations he had used his position for material gain, but his judgement was criticised.
25 July: The Overlander rail passenger service will be withdrawn at the end of September, thus ending the last passenger service operating between Auckland and Wellington.
31 July: New smaller and lighter coins are introduced in denominations of 10c, 20c, and 50c.
August
10 August: Origin Pacific Airways suspends passenger operations and lays off most of its staff. Freight operations will continue.
15 August: Māori Queen Dame Te Atairangi Kaahu dies after a long illness.
19 August: The All Blacks win the 2006 rugby union Tri Nations series.
21 August: Tuheitia Paki, the eldest son of Dame Te Atairangikaahu, is selected as the new Māori King.
23 August: Anand Satyanand is sworn in as the new Governor-General of New Zealand.
25 August An industrial dispute between supermarket company Progressive Enterprises and employees in the EPMU and NDU begins and lasts until 21 September
28 August: Helen Clark suggests that Taito Phillip Field should reconsider his future as an MP, after fresh allegations are made against him.
September
2 September: Natural gas supplies were cut to about 1000 central Wellington businesses for four days, after water entered Powerco's gas mains.
7 September: Four mayors in the Auckland Region meet with Helen Clark to discuss the possibility of amalgamating their city councils to a single body.
10 September: Tonga's King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV dies in Auckland.
13 September: Don Brash takes leave to sort out marital problems amidst rumours he had an affair.
14 September: Stephen Tindall announces his intention of buying out the other shareholders in the retail chain he founded, The Warehouse. Tindall currently has a controlling share in the company.
18 September: The Prime Minister's husband Peter Davis is accused of being gay, after a picture is published of him kissing another man. Both Davis and Clark deny the claim; the picture later turns out to be a still from election night coverage. See also:Investigate.
21 September: The dispute between supermarket company Progressive Enterprises and over 500 employees is resolved after 28 days.
25 September: Shares in carpet maker Feltex are suspended on the New Zealand Exchange after the company is placed in receivership on 22 September.
26 September: Brian Connell is suspended from the National Party caucus.
27 September: Bacardi offers NZ$138 million to buy the New Zealand alcoholic drink company 42 Below.
28 September: Dunedin's Logan Park High School is threatened by a large forest fire in a plantation bordering the school.
28 September: The Overlander train between Auckland and Wellington, due to be withdrawn at the end of the month, is to continue, but on a reduced schedule.
29 September: The Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand votes to confirm a ban on people in de facto or gay relationships from becoming leaders in the Church.
30 September: The New Zealand Government apologises to the Te Arawa iwi over Treaty of Waitangi grievances, and returns 500 square kilometres of Crown land and 19 areas of special significance to it.
October
1 October: The Wearable Art Parade is held in central Wellington.
3 October: The Christian Heritage Party announces that it is disbanding.
8 October: Fisheries officers' request to be allowed to carry batons and pepper spray is denied by Minister Jim Anderton.
18 October: Awards ceremony for the New Zealand Music Awards (the Tuis).
26 October: The father of Chris and Cru Kahui is charged with their murder in June
31 October: The five-cent coin, and the larger pre-2006 ten-cent, twenty-cent, and fifty-cent coins are withdrawn from circulation and demonetised.
November
11 November: New Zealand War Memorial opened in Hyde Park, London
Icebergs are sighted within 100 km of the New Zealand coastline.
National Party leader Don Brash resigns.
John Key appointed leader of the National Party, with Bill English as deputy.
December
4 December: The Copyright (New Technologies and Performers' Rights) Amendment Bill, is introduced to update copyright laws due to the development and adoption of new technologies.
16 December: Three children are killed when a cliff collapses on them at a riverside picnic ground in the Manawatu region.
16 December: Nine experienced New Zealand fire-fighters are injured, one seriously, as they fought Bushfires in Victoria, Australia.
22 December: The Government announces changes to the regulations governing the sale of consumer fireworks. Sales will now be restricted to 3 (previously 10) days of the year – 3–5 November and the age limit for purchase has been raised from 16 to 18.
28 December – The contentious Wellington Inner city bypass opens
31 December: The 2006 road toll provisionally stands at 387, the lowest figure since 1963
See also Current events in Oceania
Arts and literature
Awards
Catherine Chidgey and Dianne Ruth Pettis win the Robert Burns Fellowship.
Performing arts
Benny Award presented by the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand to Alan Watson.
Television
8 February: SKY Network Television purchases Prime. SKY broadcasts delayed sports events for the first time on Prime.
4 December: Susan Wood resigns as a presenter for Television New Zealand due to continuing health concerns.
Film
No. 2
Perfect Creature
Sione's Wedding
Out of the Blue
Internet
March – the sale of New Zealand's busiest web site, Trade Me Ltd. to the Fairfax group for $NZ700 million is announced.
October – Vodafone New Zealand purchases ISP ihug for NZ$41 million from iiNet.
Sport
Athletics
Dale Warrender wins his second national title in the men's marathon, clocking 2:17:43 on 29 October in Auckland, while Tracey Clissold claims her second as well in the women's championship (2:50:47).
Basketball
Women’s National Basketball League was won by Auckland, who beat North Harbour 75–74 in the final.
National Basketball League was won by the Hawkes Bay Hawks, who beat the Auckland Stars 84-69
Commonwealth Games
Cricket
The Black Caps defeat the West Indies 4–1 in a series of One-day Internationals during February.
Horse racing
Harness racing
New Zealand Trotting Cup: Flashing Red
Auckland Trotting Cup: Mi Muchacho
Mountain biking
August – UCI Mountain Bike World Cup is held in Rotorua
Olympic Games
New Zealand sends 18 competitors across five sports, its largest ever team to a Winter Olympics.
Paralympic Games
New Zealand sends a team of two competitors in one sport.
Rugby league
Bartercard Cup won by the Auckland Lions
Rugby union
New Zealand (All Blacks) retained the Tri Nations and Bledisloe Cup. Only losing one match to South Africa.
North Harbour wins the Ranfurly Shield from Canterbury 21–17 at Jade Stadium
The All Blacks convincingly won all four tests in their end-of-season tour of England, France and Wales.
Rowing
Mahé Drysdale defends his gold medal at the World Championships in August
Shooting
Ballinger Belt – Brian Carter (Te Puke)
Soccer
The Chatham Cup is won by Western Suburbs FC (Wellington) who beat Eastern Suburbs (Auckland) 0–0 in the final (3-0 on penalties).
Births
20 August – More Joyous, Thoroughbred racehorse
14 September – Katie Lee, Thoroughbred racehorse
7 October – Military Move, Thoroughbred racehorse
3 November – Ambitious Dragon, Thoroughbred racehorse
5 November – Little Bridge, Thoroughbred racehorse
10 November – So You Think, Thoroughbred racehorse
Exact date unlisted
Lucy Gray, climate change activist
Deaths
January
4 January – Bob White, politician (born 1914)
19 January – Geoff Rabone, cricketer (born 1921)
21 January – Leslie Butler, cricketer (born 1934)
22 January – Gwenethe Walshe, ballroom dancer and dance teacher (born 1908)
February
1 February
Bryce Harland, diplomat (born 1931)
Rona Tong, athlete (born 1910)
19 February – Wi Kuki Kaa, actor (born 1938)
22 February – Bob McDonald, lawn bowls player (born 1933)
28 February – Peter Snow, doctor who discovered "Tapanui flu" (born 1935)
March
5 March – Peter Malone, veterinary surgeon and politician, mayor of Nelson (1980–92) (born 1924)
8 March – Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes, heart surgeon (born 1924)
18 March – Brede Arkless, mountaineer (born 1939)
22 March – Bev Brewis, athlete (born 1930)
24 March – Mirosław Złotkowski, wrestler (born 1956)
April
4 April – Trevor Moffitt, artist (born 1936)
5 April – Tom McNab, association football player (born 1933)
17 April – Gordon Bromley, long-distance runner (born 1916)
21 April – Johnny Checketts, World War II flying ace (born 1912)
May
11 May – Bob Duff, rugby union player, local-body politician (born 1925)
16 May – Anthony Murray, rugby league player and coach (born 1958)
26 May – Anne Delamere, public servant (born 1921)
30 May – David Lloyd, botanist (born 1937)
June
2 June – Kitione Lave, boxer (born 1934)
4 June – Vic Belsham, rugby league player and referee (born 1925)
11 June – Neroli Fairhall, archer, first paraplegic to compete in the Olympic Games (born 1944)
12 June – Nicky Barr, rugby union player and World War II flying ace (born 1915)
13 June – Barry Thompson, rugby union player (born 1947)
15 June – Herb Pearson, cricketer (born 1910)
July
5 July – Kevin Herlihy, softball player (born 1947)
7 July – John Money, psychologist and sexologist (born 1921)
17 July – Roy Cowan, potter, illustrator, printmaker (born 1918)
21 July – Tony George, weightlifter (born 1919)
22 July
Ian Burrows, soldier (born 1930)
Erenora Puketapu-Hetet, tohunga raranga (born 1941)
25 July – Cis Winstanley, lawn bowls player (born 1908)
28 July – Nigel Cox, author and museum director (born 1951)
29 July – Harry Hawthorn, anthropology academic and museum curator (born 1910)
August
9 August – Colin Dickinson, cyclist (born 1931)
15 August – Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, the Māori queen (born 1931)
18 August – Jotham Pellew, wrestler (born 1978)
23 August – Jack Ridley, civil engineer and politician (born 1919)
25 August – Roy Geddes, physical biochemistry academic (born 1940)
29 August – John Scandrett, cricketer (born 1915)
30 August – Robin Cooke, Baron Cooke of Thorndon, jurist (born 1926)
September
4 September – Ron Stone, association football player (born 1913)
10 September – Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV, king of Tonga (born 1918)
11 September – Nancy Borlase, artist (born 1914)
19 September – Sir Hugh Kāwharu, Māori leader and anthropology academic (born 1927)
23 September – Joan Hart, athlete (born 1925)
24 September – Joan Hatcher, cricketer (born 1923)
29 September – Walter Hadlee, cricket player and administrator (born 1915)
October
2 October – Brian Fitzpatrick, rugby union player (born 1931)
8 October – Mark Porter, motor racing driver (born 1974)
14 October – Peter Munz, philosopher and historian (born 1921)
November
2 November – Derek Turnbull, athlete (born 1926)
14 November – Owen Truelove, glider pilot (born 1937)
16 November – John Dougan, rugby union player (born 1946)
18 November – Charles Luney, construction company director (born 1905)
December
6 December – John Feeney, documentary film director (born 1922)
8 December – Jim McCormick, rugby union player (born 1923)
10 December – Willow Macky, songwriter (born 1921)
22 December – Winifred Lawrence, swimmer (born 1920)
23 December – Graham May, weightlifter (born 1952)
29 December – Tom Lynch, rugby union and rugby league player (born 1927)
Births to deaths
20 March to 18 June – Cris and Cru Kahui
See also
List of years in New Zealand
Timeline of New Zealand history
History of New Zealand
Military history of New Zealand
Timeline of the New Zealand environment
Timeline of New Zealand's links with Antarctica
References
External links
2006 by country
2006 in Oceania
Years of the 21st century in New Zealand
2000s in New Zealand
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Show Boat is a 221-minute studio album of Jerome Kern's musical, performed by a cast headed by Karla Burns, Jerry Hadley, Bruce Hubbard, Frederica von Stade and Teresa Stratas with the Ambrosian Chorus and the London Sinfonietta under the direction of John McGlinn. It was released in 1988.
Background
Show Boat was first staged on 15 November 1927 at an out-of-town tryout at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C.. In accordance with normal practice, the creators of the show made several changes to it before its Broadway premiere at the Ziegfeld Theatre six weeks later. The Pantry scene (Act 1, Scene 2) and the Waterfront saloon scene (Act 1, Scene 3) were shortened, "Mis'ry's comin' aroun'", "I would like to play a lover's part" and "It's getting hotter in the north" were discarded, and "I might fall back on you", "Why do I love you?" and "Hey, feller!" were added.
The performing score that John McGlinn constructed for his album is a conflation of Jerome Kern's Washington and New York versions, and more comprehensive than either. The Pantry and Waterfront saloon scenes are recorded in their abbreviated versions, but the three numbers deleted before the show's Broadway premiere are reinstated, and the three new numbers composed for New York are included too. Nearly all of the dialogue for which Kern composed underscoring is present as well. An hour-long appendix presents further material. McGlinn provides the original, longer versions of the Pantry and Waterfront saloon scenes; "Kim's imitations", a number written for the first Kim, Norma Terris, when she declined to sing "It's getting hotter in the north" on the grounds that it was "lousy jazz"; "Dance away the night", a number written for the show's first London staging in 1928; "Gallivantin' aroun'", "I have the room above her" and "Ah still suits me", numbers composed for Universal's 1936 Show Boat movie; "Nobody else but me", the last song that Kern wrote, composed for a revival of the show in 1946; and four numbers that were dropped in rehearsal, "Yes, ma'am", "A pack of cards", "The Creole love song" and "Out there in an orchard". A fifth number excised before the Washington tryout, the Trocadero opening chorus, is included in the main body of the album.
The three songs from the 1936 film are heard with orchestrations that Larry Moore transcribed from its soundtrack. The orchestrations for the five numbers discarded during rehearsal were composed by Russell Warner. The remaining orchestrations are all the original versions crafted by Robert Russell Bennett. Thought lost for decades, they were found just a few years before the album was made: Bennett and the musical theatre historian Miles Kreuger unearthed one batch in 1978 in the Rodgers and Hammerstein's Music Library's Queens warehouse on West 52nd Street, and a further cache was found in 1982 in Warner Brothers' music archive in their warehouse in Secaucus, New Jersey. The vocal score of "A pack of cards" was recovered even more serendipitously: the only copy of it known to have survived turned up amongst a sheaf of old sheet music in a second-hand book store in Sacramento, California.
The making of the album was beset by several difficulties. While the estates of Kern and Edna Ferber were enthusiastic about the project, Oscar Hammerstein's son William thought it fundamentally misconceived, believing that the alterations that had been made to the show in its tryout phase had been done with good reason and ought not to be reversed. Moreover, Warner Brothers and the Kern estate spent five years wrangling over who owned the copyright of the hundreds of pages of Kern's manuscripts that had been disinterred in Secaucus. The Secaucus material that McGlinn needed for his album did not become available to him until three days before he recorded it, and then only because Beverly Sills, operatic eminence and a director of Warner Communications, prevailed upon the company to sell McGlinn and EMI the scores that they wanted for a sum in five figures. (The cost of making the entire album exceeded half a million dollars.)
A further problem arose from Hammerstein's lyrics. The very first word uttered in the musical is "Niggers". It had long been customary to censor this, but McGlinn did not want to subject Hammerstein's text to bowdlerization. When the black artists whom he had recruited from the Glyndebourne Festival's production of Porgy and Bess to form Show Boats Black Chorus realized what they were going to have to sing, they resigned from the project in protest, and Willard White, McGlinn's preferred Joe, decided to go with them. McGlinn replaced White with Bruce Hubbard, also hired from Glyndebourne, after the baritone had spent a day conferring with Eartha Kitt and other friends about whether he should accept McGlinn's invitation. The Black Chorus's music was taken over by members of the Ambrosian Singers who had already been contracted to supply the album's other choral requirements.
Edward Seckerson interviewed John McGlinn about the making of the album for a feature article published in Gramophone in November 1988. Christopher Swann shot extensive footage of the making of the album for a Granada Television documentary, The Show Boat Story, which has become available to view online.
Recording
The album was digitally recorded in June, July and August 1987 in Studio No. 1, Abbey Road Studios, London.
Cover art
The covers of the LP, cassette and CD versions of the album all use an image adapted from the dust-jacket designed by René Clarke for the first edition of the Edna Ferber novel upon which the musical is based, Show Boat, published by Doubleday, Page & Company in 1926.
Critical reception
Reviews
Andrew Lamb reviewed the album on CD in Gramophone in November 1988. "Never", he wrote, "... have I been so bowled over by a musical theatre recording as by this". Before listening to it, he had been apprehensive that it might be one of those albums on which a Broadway score was mistreated by a gang of gatecrashers from the world of opera. In the event, his fears had proved needless.
Innumerable artists, among them some of the most eminent, had sung "Bill", "Ol' man river", "Make believe" and "Can't help lovin' dat man", but none that Lamb had ever heard had presented these numbers with the "beauty and style" bestowed upon them by the singers chosen by John McGlinn. "The love duets between [Frederica] von Stade and Jerry Hadley", he wrote, were "quite stunningly beautiful, and Bruce Hubbard's firm, honeyed baritone has absolutely nothing to fear from the inevitable comparisons with Paul Robeson".
In their secondary roles, Karla Burns (as Queenie), David Garrison (as Frank), Robert Nichols (as Cap'n Andy) and Paige O'Hara (as Ellie) were all "superb" too. This was not to say that every soloist was entirely perfect in every respect. Teresa Stratas, while "ravishing" in "Can't help lovin' dat man", occasionally came across as "a shade too self-conscious", and Nancy Kulp brought back memories of Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.
There was no doubt that the Ambrosian Chorus had relished their "rousing" contributions, and the London Sinfonietta were positively riotous in the jazzy music that Kern wrote for Kim's scene in Act 3. But neither they nor any of the album's famous soloists deserved as much credit for the album's success as its conductor. John McGlinn's use of Robert Russell Bennett's original orchestrations made his recording very different from any previous version of Show Boat. This was plain from the very first bars of the overture: a tuba sounded "a note of dark foreboding" before a cheery banjo led the way to the orchestra's enthusiastic introduction to "Why do I love you?". (As well as his work on the podium, McGlinn put in a cameo appearance as Magnolia's rehearsal pianist in Act 2.)
The album's historical authenticity was not the only thing that set it apart from its predecessors. It was also encyclopedically comprehensive. "Mis'ry's comin' aroun'" was just one of several excellent pieces heard on McGlinn's discs that had been excised from the score of Show Boat almost before Kern's ink had had time to dry. An appendix included every note that a Kern devotee could desire, except for "How'd you like to spoon with me?", a number added for a production in London in 1928. McGlinn had also recorded lengthy passages of underscored dialogue, and it was the magnificence of these, ironically, that laid him open to accusations of an error of judgement. There were places - Act 1, Scene 3 for example - where dialogue was wholly absent. "By all means abridge the linking dialogue", Lamb wrote, "but to include the dialogue and underscoring complete in some scenes and not at all in others seems to me to distort the scale and balance of the piece". It might have been wiser to buy room for the missing dialogue by pruning the appendix a little. Two of its items - found in manuscript in a second-hand bookshop - hardly sounded as though they had anything to do with the Cotton Blossom at all.
All in all, though, the album was an "inspired", "quite irresistible achievement". What Solti's Decca Ring cycle had been to the history of opera, McGlinn's Show Boat was to the history of American musical theatre.
Eric Salzman reviewed the album on CD in Stereo Review in December 1988. "John McGlinn", he wrote, "is a man on a mission: to restore the lost glories of the great old American musical". His Show Boat was the most ambitious project that he had undertaken to date. Never before had a musical been reconstructed so meticulously. The original score, numbers that were dropped and new numbers composed for the stage or the screen were all present and correct.
Robert Russell Bennett's 1927 orchestrations had been retrieved from the cobwebbed recesses of a warehouse in Secaucus. The sombre overture had been rescued from oblivion. Listeners could enjoy several wonderful old dance tunes and some liberally underscored dialogue (unbowdlerized. even at its most offensive).
Show Boat itself. alas, was not as great a work as some of its apologists claimed. Its source, Edna Ferber's novel, was not "a deathless work of art ('potboiler' might be closer to the mark)". Oscar Hammerstein II's text was spoiled by a ramshackle plot and a good deal of sentimentality. Despite moments of seriousness such as "Ol' man river", it was concerned less with social history or psychology than with the hackneyed trope of "what show-biz folks are like behind the scenes." Kern's frequent repetition of his catchiest melodies was an instance of a composer flogging his best tunes to death, not of one engaged in an architecture of Wagnerian leitmotivs. Kern and Hammerstein had crafted their magnum opus at a time when Puccini was in his grave, and Berg, Eugene O'Neill. Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill were already famous. Show Boat was already old-fashioned when it was premiered, and it would be a mistake to claim more for it than "a certain antique charm".
McGlinn's cast included some outstanding singers, but it was questionable whether a Show Boat starring Frederica von Stade, Jerry Hadley, Teresa Stratas and Bruce Hubbard could seem other than a "very old-fashioned, if inspired operetta". Kern had tried to re-energize the tired genre in which he worked with an infusion of jazz and blues. These were musical territories to which most of McGlinn's stars were strangers, and McGlinn's brisk, businesslike conducting allowed little scope for a bluesy mood to be created. Karla Burns was a "heavy jazz and blues performer of the old school", but McGlinn never gave her an opportunity to really do her thing. McGlinn's London Sinfonietta did not have a rhythm section that could play either jazz or blues satisfactorily.
McGlinn's album was best enjoyed when listened to unreflectively. One could recognize that it was an extraordinary performance. McGlinn's rebuilt performing score worked very well. His long appendix was a cornucopia of treats. Von Stade and Stratas were astute enough to sing Kern in a manner closer to that of operetta than to that of their usual opera. McGlinn's pacing was sometimes too brisk, but most of his tempos were appropriate, and he took "the bigger numbers (where he is at his best) up to some rather breathless and even thrilling heights".
To sum up, Show Boat was not a work of any depth either musically or dramatically. But Hammerstein made up for his crude storytelling with some good, and even great, lyrics. Kern supplied "endlessly lavish musical innovation", and was one of the few composers to have successfully infused operetta with a contemporary American idiom. Bennett's orchestrations were extremely well crafted. The best numbers in the score "had not lost any of their lustre". There were enough good things in Show Boat to merit the "care and genuine affection" and "devotion, talent and enthusiasm" with which McGlinn and his colleagues had gone about their work,
J. B. Steane reviewed the album on CD in Gramophone in January 1989. At first, he wrote, listening to the recording was blissful. The overture, with its ominous opening chord, delighted and impressed him with its implicit promise of a performance of genuine substance. Then the first few choruses lifted him up into the gaiety of the Cotton Blossom's spirit. Magnolia von Stade's contribution to "Only make believe" melted him; Bruce Hubbard's "Ol' man river" enraptured him; and "when it came to 'Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly' and their many repetitions, they couldn't do what they gotta do too often for me". And then, having loved everything that he had heard thus far, he decided to take a break.
After his interval, he rejoiced to find that some of the musical's biggest hits were still to come. But between "Why do I love you" and "Just my Bill", things started to go wrong. There was a lacuna in the narrative. He wanted to know what had happened to the characters in the interval, but EMI's booklet had nothing to say on the matter. The disappointment would have been easy to shrug off if the music had sustained its excellence, but then, in the music-hall sequence, Kern's inspiration seemed to wilt in tandem with the album's story-telling. Ravenal's desertion of Magnolia was glossed over, and the ending of the piece felt all but "perfunctory". Like Lamb before him, Steane felt that McGlinn would have been wiser to sacrifice some of his bonus tracks in order to make room for more dialogue. "Scholarship and entertainment are somewhat at odds here."
Patrick O'Connor mentioned the album in Gramophone in March 2003 while reviewing a disc of excerpts from it. It was, he wrote, "something of a landmark, ... one of the best recordings of any music-theatre piece ever made. The cast is flawless, ... with Teresa Stratas a vivid, ironic Julie. ... John McGlinn has done nothing better in disc; the production sounds as fresh now as fifteen years ago."
Writing about the making of the album in The New York Times on 25 September 1988, Stephen Holden described it as "magnificently recorded and sung" with "vital, intense performances".
Accolades
Writing in Gramophone in December 1988, Adrian Edwards included the album in his Critics' Choice list of the best recordings of the year. "I had never believed that Show Boat could be mentioned in the same breath as Porgy and Bess," he wrote, "yet McGlinn's recording demonstrates how subtly Kern and Hammerstein placed each number in the course of their 180-minute saga."
In the Gramophone Awards for 1989, the album won the prize for the best musical theatre recording of the year.
Writing in Gramophone in December 1989, Andrew Lamb named the album as his Critics' Choice best recording of the decade. "To select a Record of the Eighties is a formidable task indeed", he wrote. "But ... I find no real challenge for the three-CD Show Boat. ... Singing and playing are superb, and ... the use of original orchestrations plays its part in the success; as well as the inclusion of much splendid, rediscovered music,"
Track listing, CD1Jerome Kern (1885–1945)Show Boat'' (1927), with book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960); adapted from the novel Show Boat (1926) by Edna Ferber (1885–1968); with original orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett and additional orchestrations by Russell Warner and Larry Moore
1 (5:34) Overture
Act One, Scene OneCotton Blossom 2 (4:54) "Niggers all work on de Mississippi" (Stevedores, Gals, Queenie, Steve, Pete, 1st Mincing Miss, 2nd Mincing Miss, Beaux, Girls, Boys)
3 (0:47) "Andy!!!" (Parthy, Windy, 1st Mincing Miss, 2nd Mincing Miss)Cap'n Andy's Ballyhoo 4 (3:41) "Here comes the Show Boat parade!" (Boy, Girls, Boys, Andy, Parthy)
5 (3:58) "Hey Julie" (Pete, Julie, Steve, Parthy, Andy, Ellie)
6 (1:26) "It's a man" (Ellie, Ravenal, Vallon)Where's the mate for me? 7 (3:35) "Who cares if my boat goes upstream" (Ravenal, Magnolia)Make believe 8 (5:02) "Only make believe I love you" (Ravenal, Magnolia, Vallon)Ol' man river 9 (5:42) "Oh, Joe!" (Magnolia, Joe, Men)
Act One, Scene TwoCan't help lovin' dat man10 (8:07) "What cher doin' all by yourself, Miss Nola?" (Queenie, Magnolia, Julie, Joe, Servants)
Act One, Scene ThreeLife on the wicked stage11 (3:36) "Why do stage struck maidens clamor" (Ellie, Girls)Till good luck comes my way12 (2:26) "The man who ventures with chance" (Ravenal, Men)
Act One, Scene FourMis'ry's comin' aroun'13 (6:10) "Mis'ry's comin' aroun'" (Queenie, Women, Joe, Magnolia, Julie, Men, Solo Bass)
14 (3:38) "Take her up, Rubberface!" (Andy, Julie, Steve, Magnolia, Parthy, Ellie, Windy)
15 (2:46) "Hello, Windy" (Vallon, Andy, Magnolia, Steve, Julie, Windy, Ellie, Parthy)
16 (3:20) "You needn't look at us" (Steve, Black Chorus, Andy, Parthy, Magnolia, Ellie, Frank)
17 (5:25) "Looks like a swell" (Andy, Parthy, Frank, Ravenal, Julie, Magnolia, Steve, Joe)
Track listing, CD2
Act One, Scene FiveI would like to play a lover's part 1 (4:10) "Her face is fair to look upon" (Boys, Girls, Ellie, Frank)I might fall back on you 2 (3:00) "Little girl, you are safe with me" (Frank, Ellie, Girls)Queenie's Ballyhoo 3 (3:14) "Is de theater fillin' up, Cap'n Andy?" (Queenie, Andy, Black Chorus)
Act One, Scene SixVillain Dance 4 (0:58) Dance
Act One, Scene SevenYou are love 5 (8:00) "That you, Nola?" (Ravenal, Windy, Magnolia, Parthy)
Act One, Scene EightFinale, Act One 6 (6:05) "Oh tell me, did you ever! (Girls, Boys, Chorus, Andy, Women, Men, Black Women, Magnolia)
Act Two, Scene OneAt the fair 7 (4:11) "When we tell them about it all" (All, 1st Barker, Boys, Girls, Chorus, 2nd Barker, Men, 3rd Barker)Why do I love you? 8 (6:38) "I'm walking on the air, dear" (Magnolia, Ravenal, Chorus, Andy)In Dahomey 9 (3:43) "Dyunga doe!" (Dahomey Villagers, White Chorus)
Act Two, Scene ThreeConvent Scene10 (7:17) "Alma Redemptoris Mater" (Nuns, Mother Superior, Ravenal, Kim)
Act Two, Scene Four
11 (1:04) "All right, Jake" (Jim, Jake, Julie)Bill [lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse (1918), revised by Hammerstein (1927)]
12 (4:12) "I used to dream" (Julie)Magnolia's auditionCan't help lovin' dat man (Reprise)
13 (1:48) "Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly" (Magnolia)
14 (1:42) "Whaddaya say, boss?" (Frank, Jim, Magnolia, Jake)
Act Two, Scene SixTrocadero opening chorus15 (2:47) "Let's make the new year" (Chorus)Apache Dance16 (2:14) DanceGoodbye, my lady love17 (2:40) "So you're going away" (Frank, Ellie)After the ball18 (3:31) "Ladies and gentlemen" (Jim, Drunk, Andy, Magnolia, A Man, All)
Act Two, Scene SevenOl' man river (Reprise)
19 (2:09) "Ol' man river" (Joe)Hey, feller!20 (2:30) "When you yen for a gent" (Queenie, Chorus)
Act Two, Scene EightYou are love (Reprise)
21 (2:12) "That you, Nola?" (Ravenal)
Track listing, CD3
Act Two, Scene NineCotton Blossom (Reprise)
1 (0:39) "Cotton Blossom" (Chorus)It's getting hotter in the north 2 (8:57) "Now up in the northern land" (Kim, Chorus)
3 (1:08) "Say, Cap'n Andy" (Frank, Ellie, Andy)Finale Ultimo 4 (2:59) "Hello, Gay" (Andy, Hope, Ravenal, Girl, Man, Magnolia, Old Lady on the Levee, Chorus)AppendixPantry scene (Act One, Scene Two; deleted – 1927)
5 (12:52) "What cher doin' all by yourself, Miss Nola?" (Queenie, Magnolia, Julie, Joe, Servants)Waterfront saloon scene (Act One, Scene Three; deleted – 1927)
6 (4:38) "Number four, black!" (Voice Off, Ravenal, Lounger, Gambler)Yes Ma'am (Act One, Scene Three; unused – 1927)
7 (2:30) "Bet your hat" (Girls, Ellie)Kim's imitations (Act Two, Scene Nine; Ziegfeld production – 1927)
8 (4:12) "Why do I love you?" (Kim, Chorus)Dance away the night (Act Two, Scene Nine; London – 1928)
9 (4:26) "Music in the air" (Kim, Girls, Boys)A pack of cards (Act One, Scene Six [?]; unused - 1927)
10 (5:07) "One night as I sat by my fireside so weary" (Magnolia)The Creole love song (Act One, Scene Seven; unused – 1927)
11 (6:05) "That you, Nola?" (Ravenal, Windy, Magnolia)Out there in an orchard (Act Two, Scene Four; unused – 1927)
12 (3:41) "There was a sun sinking slowly in the west" (Julie)Gallivantin' around (Universal film – 1936)
13 (2:41) "Liza Matilda Hill" (Magnolia, Chorus)I have the room above her (Universal film – 1936)
14 (4:47) "Seems to me I've seen that stocking someplace" (Ravenal, Magnolia)Ah still suits me (Universal film – 1936)
15 (3:44) "Joe! Dere you go again!" (Queenie, Joe)Nobody else but me''' (Act Two, Scene Nine; Revival – 1946)
16 (6:48) "I was a shy, demure type" (Kim, Chorus)
Personnel
Musicians and actors
Robert Nichols (1924–2013), Cap'n Andy Hawkes, owner of the Cotton Blossom, husband of Parthy
Nancy Kulp (1921–1991), Parthy Ann Hawkes, wife of Cap'n Andy
Frederica von Stade (born 1945), Magnolia Hawkes, daughter of Andy and Parthy
Jerry Hadley (1952–2007), Gaylord Ravenal, a riverboat gambler
Kerry Schulz, Kim, daughter of Magnolia and Ravenal, as a child
Frederica von Stade, Kim as a woman
Bruce Hubbard (1952–1991), Joe, a dock worker, husband of Queenie
Karla Burns (1954–2021), Queenie, a cook, husband of Joe
Steve Barton (1954–2001), Steve Baker, a leading man, husband of Julie
Teresa Stratas (born 1938), Julie LaVerne, a leading lady, wife of Steve
David Garrison (born 1952), Frank Schultz, a performer, husband of Ellie
Paige O'Hara (born 1956), Ellie May Chipley, a singer and dancer
Ed Bishop (1932–2005), Windy McClain, pilot of the Cotton Blossom
Ron Travis, Pete, engineer of the Cotton Blossom
Jack Dabdoub (1925–2014), Sheriff Vallon
Margaret Tyzack (1931–2011), Mother Superior
Tayleurs Dumme, 1st Barker
George Dvorsky, 2nd Barker
Kevin Colson (1937–2018), 3rd Barker
Merwin Goldsmith (1937–2019), Jim
John McGlinn (1953-2008), Jake, Magnolia's rehearsal pianist
Gillian Bevan (born 1956), a Mincing Miss
Deborah Poplett, a Mincing Miss
Simon Green, a Trocadero patron
Evan Pappas, a Trocadero patron
Vernon Midgley (born 1940), the Faro Dealer
Ray Gill (1950–1992), a Gambler
Mark D. Kaufmann, a Lounger
Dyer Thurst, a Lounger
Mark D. Kaufmann, a Show Boat patron
Jeanne Lehman, a Show Boat patron
Rebecca Luker (1961–2020), a Show Boat patron
Maryetta Midgley (born 1942), a Servant
Meriel Dickinson, a Servant
Michael Pearn, a Servant
Leslie Fyson, a Servant
Lillian Gish (1893–1993), the Lady on the levee
Simon Green, dance double
Peter Burke, dance double
Wayne Marshall (born 1961), stage piano
Ambrosian Chorus
John McCarthy, chorus master
London Sinfonietta
William Hicks, répétiteur
John McGlinn (1953–2008), conductor
Other
John Fraser, producer
Michael Sheady, balance engineer
John Kurlander, remixing engineer
Peter Mew, 24-track Sony editing
Alison Fox, production assistant
Michael Allen, director of administration
Release history
In 1988, Angel Records released the album in the US as a triple LP (catalogue number DSC 49108), triple cassette (catalogue number A2 49108) and triple CD (catalogue number A4 49108). Also in 1988, EMI records released the album in the UK in the same three formats (with catalogue numbers RIVER 1 for the triple LP, TCRIVER 1 for the triple cassette and CDRIVER 1 for the triple CD). The CDs were issued in a slipcase with a 136-page booklet containing a synopsis, a libretto, a historical essay by Miles Krueger, notes by John McGlinn, an interview with Florenz Ziegfeld's secretary about the musical's original production, fourteen historical photographs and portraits of von Stade, Hadley, Stratas, Hubbard, Burns, Garrison, O'Hara, Nichols, Kulp, Barton, Dabdoub, Gish and McGlinn.
References
1988 albums
Cast recordings
Classical crossover albums
EMI Records albums
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Harold Patrick Kelly (July 30, 1944 – October 2, 2005) was an American professional baseball player who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as an outfielder from 1967 to 1981 with the Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals, Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles and the Cleveland Indians. He batted and threw left-handed. His brother, Leroy, was a Pro Football Hall of Fame running back.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kelly was an "All Public" baseball player at Simon Gratz High School, honored with the Cliveden Award as Philadelphia's finest prep school athlete in 1962. Signed by the Twins that year, he spent the next several seasons in the minor leagues, debuting with the Twins in 1967. He played a handful of games for them in 1968, then was selected in the 1968 Major League Baseball expansion draft by the Royals, becoming an everyday player over the next two years with the fledgling franchise. Traded to the White Sox before the 1971 season, he spent part of 1971 in the minor leagues but got more playing time as a right fielder and designated hitter in the following years, reaching the All-Star Game for the only time in his career in 1973. Traded to the Orioles after the 1976 season, he received significant playing time in left field in 1977 and 1978, then served as a bench player the next two years. With a career-high .536 slugging percentage in 1979, Kelly helped the Orioles reach the MLB playoffs, appearing in the World Series, which Baltimore lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates in seven games. After one last season with the Indians in 1981, Kelly retired.
After becoming a born-again Christian in 1975, Kelly became very involved in Christian ministry. Under his influence, several of his Oriole teammates became Christians. Following his career, he became an ordained minister, serving at ministries in Baltimore and Cleveland until his death of a heart attack in 2005.
Early life
Harold Patrick Kelly was born on July 30, 1944, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to parents Orvin and Argie Kelly. His parents had originally lived in South Carolina, but they had moved to the Nicetown neighborhood of northern Philadelphia in the 1920s, when Orvin was hired by a steel company. Pat was one of nine children, though he never met two of his siblings who died in 1940 because of rheumatic fever. He recalled, "My father worked for $12 a week to serve nine kids and put food on the table. He would wake up at four in the morning and it would be freezing cold outside. He would go in a pickup truck with no heat some 30 miles and work all day, but he went with God in his heart."
A faithful Baptist family, the Kellys attended Sunday school each week. They were also an athletic family; Leroy, Pat's older brother by two years and the closest in age to him, succeeded Jim Brown as the Cleveland Browns primary running back and was eventually inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Pat and Leroy competed all the time, which Pat credited for helping instill in him a competitive nature. He went to baseball games at Connie Mack Stadium growing up, and his favorite ballplayer was Jackie Robinson.
Kelly attended Simon Gratz High School, graduating in 1962. He was part of the "All Public" teams in both baseball and football. As a senior, he was honored with the Cliveden Award, presented to the finest Philadelphia prep school athlete. Though he would be an outfielder in the major leagues, Kelly was used as a pitcher in high school. After allowing home runs, he would often display a bad attitude, but the reprimands of coach Pete Lorenc eventually helped him overcome the habit. "When you played for him, the first thing you learned was discipline," Kelly said, observing its importance both in hitting and keeping a good attitude.
Minor leagues (1963–66)
On September 11, 1962, Kelly signed his first professional baseball contract with the Minnesota Twins, who decided to use him as an outfielder. He split the 1963 season with the Erie Sailors of the Class A New York-Penn League and the Orlando Twins of the Class A Florida State League. Having grown up in Philadelphia, Kelly, who was black, was unused to dealing with segregation. At Orlando, though, he and his black teammates had to stay at a different hotel from the white players on the team. "I know those times were hard, but what always kept me going was what Jackie Robinson went through," he later recalled. In 69 games with Erie, he batted .283 with 50 runs scored, 70 hits, four home runs, and 30 runs batted in (RBI). With Orlando in 49 games, he batted .242 with 27 runs scored, 28 hits, no home runs, and 26 RBI.
Kelly spent most of 1964 with the Wisconsin Rapids Twins of the Class A Midwest League. In 104 games, he ranked among the league leaders with a .357 batting average (third, behind Dave May's .368 and Ed Moxey's .362), 138 hits (third, behind May's 166 and John Matias's 151), 26 doubles (tied with May, Eusebio Rosas, and David Burge for the league lead), 16 home runs (third, behind Rene Lachemann's 24 and Chuck Gross's 18), and 70 RBI (eighth). He also played 18 games with the Wilson Tobs of the Class A Carolina League, batting .245 with eight runs scored, 12 hits, no home runs, and eight RBI.
In 1965, Kelly spent the whole season with Wilson. He played 144 games, batting .283 with 138 hits, four home runs, and 52 RBI. Kelly ranked fifth in the league with 27 stolen bases (in 32 attempts), and his 101 runs scored were topped only by Sam Thompson's 121.
Kelly expected a promotion to the Class AA Charlotte Hornets of the Southern League in 1966; thus, he was very disappointed when he found out the Twins planned to send him back to Wilson. "When I found out I didn’t make the Charlotte team, I packed up my Pontiac LeMans and told them I was leaving camp if they did not put me on the Charlotte roster by noon,” Kelly recalled. “And they agreed." The ballplayer went on to have the second-highest batting average (.321) in the league that year, behind only Johnnie Fenderson's .324. He also finished second to Thompson in steals, with 52 as opposed to Thompson's 60. In 113 games, Kelly scored 74 runs, recorded 126 hits, had three home runs, and batted in 55 runs.
Minnesota Twins (1967–68)
In 1967, Kelly moved up to Class AAA, spending most of the year with the Denver Bears of the Pacific Coast League (PCL). He played 65 games for them, batting .286 with 42 runs scored, 70 hits, no home runs, 15 RBI, and 19 stolen bases. That September, he reached the major leagues for the first time, promoted by the Twins when rosters expanded. His first game came on September 6, when he pinch-ran for Frank Kostro in a 3–2 loss to the Cleveland Indians. Seven of the eight games he played were as a pinch runner; he pinch hit in one other game, striking out against Bob Humphreys in his only at bat of the season. After the 1967 season, he played some games for the Twins affiliate in the Florida Instructional League as well.
Kelly spent most of the 1968 season in Denver. In 108 games, he had 70 runs scored, 121 hits, three home runs, and 31 RBI. Kelly finished third in the league with a .306 batting average (topped only by Jim Hicks's .366 and José Herrera's .311), and he led the league with 38 stolen bases. That September, he was again called up by Minnesota. Though he only appeared in 12 games this year, he received more playing time, as he started in the outfield for nine of them. On September 23, he hit his first major league home run, coming against Clyde Wright in a 3–0 victory over the California Angels. With the Twins in 1968, he had four hits in 35 at bats. After the season, he went to Venezuela to play winter baseball. Originally, he was going to play for the Leones del Caracas with Twins teammate César Tovar, but because the Leones already had enough outfielders, he played for the Navegantes del Magallanes instead. In 60 games, he batted .342 with 11 home runs and 45 RBI. He and Cito Gaston were some of the first foreign stars for the team as they helped the Navegantes to reach the first round of the playoffs.
Kansas City Royals (1969–70)
While Kelly was in Venezuela, the Kansas City Royals selected him in the fourth round of the 1968 Major League Baseball expansion draft. His playing time increased in 1969, as he started 106 games in the outfield: 60 as a right fielder, 44 as a center fielder, and two as a left fielder. "He’s tremendously improved with the bat," opined manager Joe Gordon. "He’s changed his whole style of attacking the ball. . .he has a quick bat, a good level swing and has no fear at the plate. He’ll hit all kinds of pitching." In 112 games (417 at bats), Kelly batted .264 with 61 runs scored, 110 hits, eight home runs, and 32 RBI. He stole a career-high 40 bases in 53 attempts. After the year, the Royals sent him to their instructional league affiliate to refine his hitting, bunting, and fielding technique.
Kelly began 1970 as the Royals starting right fielder. He seemed to be losing the position to Joe Keough in June, as Keough started 12 straight games there beginning June 16 while Kelly was used mainly as a pinch hitter during that stretch. After Keough broke his leg on June 28, Kelly served as the starting right fielder again for the rest of the year. On September 11, against the Oakland Athletics, his single with two outs in the eighth inning spoiled a no hitter by Vida Blue, who went on to complete one 10 days later. In 136 games (452 at bats), Kelly batted .235 with 56 runs scored, 106 hits, six home runs, and 38 RBI. He stole 34 bases in 50 attempts. After the season, on October 13, Kelly and Don O'Riley were traded to the Chicago White Sox for Matias and Gail Hopkins.
Chicago White Sox (1971–76)
Before he played a game for the White Sox, Kelly spent the 1970–71 offseason in Venezuela with the Tiburones de La Guaira. He batted .365 with six home runs in 27 games, then batted .405 in the postseason as the Tiburones won the league championship. Kelly was less successful in spring training with the White Sox, as he ran into a fence and hurt his right knee, struggled to hit, and was sent to the minor leagues to begin the season. "I was a little upset. . . no, I guess I was a great deal upset," Kelly recalled three years later. "But I talked to my brother and finally got myself together again." In 75 games (301 at bats) with the PCL's Tucson Toros, Kelly batted .355 with 71 runs scored, 107 hits, six home runs, 43 RBI, and 15 stolen bases in 19 tries. Called up by the White Sox in June, Kelly never played a game in the minor leagues again. He had established himself in the major leagues, though for the rest of his career, he was mainly used against right-handed pitching. In 67 games (213 at bats) for the White Sox, he batted .291 with 32 runs scored, 62 hits, three home runs, 22 RBI, and 14 stolen bases in 23 attempts. After the season, he played for the Tiburones again, hitting no home runs but batting .400 as La Guira reached the final round of the playoffs.
Kelly shared right field duties with Walt Williams in 1972 but got the bulk of the starts. In the second game of a doubleheader against the Texas Rangers on August 6, Kelly walked to lead off the game, stole second base, advanced to third on a groundout, and stole home for the only run of the game. Exactly 14 days later, he played a big part in the first game of a doubleheader, with the White Sox trailing the Boston Red Sox 7–6 in the ninth and two outs. Kelly hit a three-run walkoff home run against Marty Pattin to give Chicago a 9–7 victory. "It's a good thing my boy didn't leave Kelly out of the lineup," manager Chuck Tanner quipped with reporters afterwards. Adept at base-stealing, Kelly's "small ball" contributions helped the White Sox finished second place in the American League (AL) West Division, behind Oakland. In 119 games (402 at bats), Kelly batted .261 with 57 runs scored, 105 hits, five home runs, 24 RBI, and 32 stolen bases in 41 attempts. After the season, Kelly played in the Venezuelan leagues for the last time, batting .296 with two home runs in 35 games as the Tiburones reached the playoffs.
The 1973 season was one of Kelly's best. Hitting from the start, he led the major leagues with a .441 batting average at the end of May. A hurt shoulder made throwing more difficult for the outfielder, but it did not keep him from hitting. "I’ve become much more selective about pitches in my swing zone,” Kelly explained, “and I’m seeing the ball good. When you’re hitting, it’s as big as a balloon." On the strength of his hot start, Kelly was selected to the AL All-Star team for the only time in his career, chosen by manager Dick Williams. Playing in a career-high 144 games (550 at bats), he hit .280 with 77 runs scored, 154 hits, 24 doubles, one home run, 44 RBI, and 22 stolen bases in 37 attempts.
Kelly was used a majority of the time as the designated hitter for the White Sox in 1974, as Bill Sharp got more of the starts in right field. On June 24, Kelly's sixth-inning single against Steve Busby was the first hit off the pitcher in 17 innings, spoiling Busby's attempt at throwing a second straight no hitter. He topped his batting average from the previous year by one point, accruing 60 runs scored, 119 hits, four home runs, and 21 RBI in 122 games (424 at bats). Kelly stole 18 bases in 29 attempts.
In 1975, Kelly resumed his duties as Chicago's primary right fielder. With the White Sox trailing Oakland 3–2 in the first game of the season on April 8, and the tying run on second base, Kelly had a pinch-hit single against Rollie Fingers. However, Lee Richard was thrown out trying to score, and the White Sox lost 3–2. The next day, Kelly pinch-hit against Fingers again in the ninth, with the bases loaded and the White Sox down by a run. This time, his pinch-hit triple put the White Sox ahead for a 7–5 victory. In 133 games (471 at bats), he batted .274 with 73 runs scored, 129 hits, nine home runs, 45 RBI, and 18 stolen bases in 28 chances.
Kelly returned to the designated hitter role in 1976, as the newly-acquired Ralph Garr became the starting right fielder. In 107 games (311 at bats), Kelly batted .254 with 42 runs scored, 79 hits, five home runs, 34 RBI, and 15 stolen bases in 22 tries. After the season, thinking they had plenty of left-handed hitters and seeking catching help, the White Sox traded Kelly to the Baltimore Orioles for Dave Duncan. The trade did not solve their catching problems, as Duncan was released the following March without ever having played a game for the White Sox. "A most glaring mistake" is how owner Bill Veeck described the transaction.
Baltimore Orioles (1977–80)
With the Orioles, Kelly was used mostly as a left fielder, sharing time there with Andrés Mora in 1977 and 1978. After a 1-for-18 start to the 1977 season, Kelly had a 19-game hitting streak from May 1 through 23. Baltimore manager Earl Weaver said of his performance, "Kelly is hot now. I don't know if he'll stay that way all year. It's kind of doubtful he will, because he has never hit this much before, but no matter what he hits, he's an asset to this club. He was even when he was one-for-18."
On June 3, Kelly was part of what sportswriter Fred Rothenberg called "one of the strangest triple plays in baseball history." With the bases loaded for the Royals in the ninth inning, and Kansas City down 7–5, John Wathan hit a fly ball to right field that Kelly caught for the first out. All the runners tagged to advance a base, but Kelly threw to shortstop Mark Belanger, who caught Freddie Patek in a rundown between first and second base and ultimately tagged him out. While this was going on, Dave Nelson, who had successfully advanced to third base, decided to try to score. Upon tagging out Patek, Belanger ran towards the third base line and caught up with Nelson 10 feet from home plate, tagging him out to complete the triple play and end the game.
In 120 games (360 at bats) for the Orioles in 1977, Kelly batted .256 with 50 runs scored, 92 hits, 10 home runs, 49 RBI, and 25 stolen bases in 32 attempts. He played 100 games for the Orioles in 1978, batting .274 in 274 at bats, with 38 runs scored, 75 hits, a career-high 11 home runs, 40 RBI, and 10 stolen bases in 18 attempts.
Mora returned to Mexico for the 1979 season, and Gary Roenicke became the primary left fielder for the Orioles, limiting Kelly to a bench role. However, 1979 was one of his best seasons, as he posted a career-high .536 slugging percentage and delivered with several important hits during the season. In the 10th inning of a game against the Red Sox on May 23, Kelly had a pinch-hit, walkoff home run against Bob Stanley to give Baltimore a 5–2 victory. Reporters had observed in the past that the Christian Kelly often seemed to have big hits on Sundays, yet this was a Wednesday game. "Wednesday was the first day we had a meeting for Bible study, so though it was not Sunday, it was the same," Kelly pointed out. Exactly three months later, he pinch-hit for Rich Dauer in the eighth inning of a game where Baltimore trailed Oakland 4–3. Facing Dave Heaverlo with the bases loaded, Kelly hit a grand slam, earning curtain calls twice from the ecstatic fans at Memorial Stadium as Baltimore won 7–4. In 68 games (153 at bats), Kelly batted .288 with 25 runs scored, 44 hits, nine home runs, 25 RBI, and four stolen bases in nine attempts as the Orioles won the AL East title.
In the playoffs for the first time, Kelly started three out of the four games in the AL Championship Series against the Angels, batting .364. He hit a three-run home run against John Montague in Game 4, putting the Orioles up 8–0 in a win that sent them to the World Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Kelly also played five games in this series but was used only as a pinch-hitter, racking up a hit and a walk in five plate appearances. Batting for Rick Dempsey in the ninth inning of Game 7, Kelly made the last out of the series, flying out to Pirates center fielder Omar Moreno as Baltimore was defeated in seven games.
Kelly had a similar amount of playing time in 1980. Used mostly against right-handed pitchers, he faced right-handed pitchers only five times all year. Against the Detroit Tigers on September 10, he had a pinch-hit grand slam against Dave Rozema, adding another RBI as well in an 8–4 victory. Rozema was the pitcher whom Kelly had the most success against during his career; he had six hits in eight at bats against the Tiger, including four home runs. In 89 games (200 at bats), he batted .260 with 38 runs scored, 52 hits, three home runs, and 26 RBI. He stole 16 bases while only getting caught twice. After the season, he became a free agent.
Cleveland Indians (1981)
Kelly finished his major league career with the Indians during the strike-shortened 1981 season. He hit .213 (16-for-75) in 48 games, with one home run, 16 RBI, and two stolen bases in six attempts. Following the season, he retired from baseball.
Career overview
In a 15-season career, Kelly was a .264 hitter with 76 home runs and 418 RBI in 1,385 games played. He added 1,147 hits, 189 doubles, 35 triples, and 250 stolen bases. A speedy runner, he served most commonly as a leadoff hitter when he was in the starting lineup. According to a common anecdote, Kelly once asked manager Weaver, "Why don't you walk with the Lord?" Weaver responded, "I'd rather you walk with the bases loaded." Kelly actually did walk a great deal during his career, accruing a total of 588 bases on balls.
When Kelly joined the White Sox in 1971, manager Tanner described his arm as "adequate," noting that he was not a "polished outfielder." Later in Kelly's career, Weaver would tell him to stand three feet from the foul line and not move. "If the ball is hit to you, all I want you to do is throw it to second base," Weaver said. When Kelly asked him what to do if it was the ninth inning, the team was up by a run, and someone was trying to score from second, Weaver said, "Don't worry about that. If we're up a run in the ninth inning, you aren't out there anyway."
Personal life
Kelly's friend Andre Thornton introduced the player to his sister-in-law Phyllis Jones, part of The Jones Sisters Trio, who married Kelly on February 10, 1979. Oriole teammate Lee May was one of the ushers at the wedding. Pat and Phyllis had one child, daughter April Marie. During his career, Kelly took college classes at Morgan State University, earning his degree sometime during the 1970s. Fishing and basketball were hobbies of his.
Religion
Though raised in a Baptist household, Kelly moved on to a lifestyle of "liquor, drugs, [and] women" after his major league career began. He and White Sox teammate Paul Casanova opened the La Pelota nightclub in Caracas, Venezuela, during the 1971–72 offseason. By 1975, he was suffering from depression.
That year, personal friend Clyde White invited him to a Bible class, where Kelly became a born-again Christian. "I thought I was happy before, but actually, I didn't know what true happiness meant," he said in an interview two years later. He was not shy about sharing his faith with his teammates. With the Orioles, he organized a chapel service in the lifting weight room at Memorial Stadium. Scott McGregor, Tippy Martinez, Doug DeCinces, Kiko Garcia, and Ken Singleton became Christians as a result of Kelly's influence. According to Kelly, after he left the Orioles, Weaver sent him a letter expressing his admiration for Kelly's religious devotion.
"Some of the fellows call me 'Reverend'," Kelly said in a 1977 interview. "Other people say I missed my calling." Once his career was over, Kelly did indeed become an ordained minister at the Evangelical Baptist Church in Baltimore. He was a minister for Lifeline Ministries as well. Kelly's service was not just confined to Maryland; he assisted in charity work as the executive director of the Cleveland-based Christian Family Outreach. He travelled back and forth between Cleveland and his home of Timonium, Maryland, also journeying to international destinations to share his faith. "I go and I proclaim the Gospel. I see people saved," Kelly described his ministry.
Death
After preaching in a Methodist Church at Amberson, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 2005, Kelly was journeying to visit some friends. He suffered a heart attack in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and died at age 61. The ballplayer was buried at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens in Timonium. Following his death, Joe Ehrmann, ex-linebacker for the Baltimore Colts and pastor of Grace Fellowship Church in Baltimore, had this to say about Kelly. "Pat was such an asset to the community. He was the embodiment of his religious beliefs. . . He transcended race, class, sports, and was just a fabulous lover of people, a good husband, and father. He was a charismatic preacher whose message came from his own life, and he wanted people to know that he walked with God."
References
External links
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1944 births
2005 deaths
African-American baseball players
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The Fujian–Taiwan relations, also known as the Min–Tai relations, refers to the relationship between Fujian, which is located in mainland China, and Taiwan, which is across the Taiwan Strait. Since the average width of the Taiwan Strait is 180 kilometers, Fujian and Taiwan are adjacent, similar in both climate and environment. Although the relationship between Taiwan and Fujian has changed with the development of history, the two places have maintained close relations in terms of personnel, economy, military, culture and other aspects. At present, Taiwan residents are mostly descendants of immigrants from mainland China, of which the southern Fujian ethnic group is the main group, accounting for 73.5% of Taiwan's total population. In terms of culture, language, religion, and customs, Fujian and Taiwan also share similarities.
On the other hand, after the Government of the Republic of China relocated to Taiwan in 1949, the Voice of Free China and the Radio Taiwan International mainland broadcasting group were set up to broadcast to the mainland. Frontline radio stations broadcast on Taiwan, and the cross-strait propaganda between the Taiwan Strait did not officially end until 1990. The People's Republic of China deployed missiles at its southeastern coast to attack Taiwan at any time and test-fired missiles off the coast of Taiwan before the presidential election of the Republic of China from 1995 to 1996. According to incomplete statistics, from 1989 to 2013, the Republic of China military police intercepted and arrested 223 mainland fishing vessels and 3,160 fishermen on the mainland side of the Taiwan Strait, and suffocated or drowned 46 people from mainland China, including 25 Fujian fishermen in a major tragedy called the Min Ping Yu No. 5540 incident. The Republic of China government only expressed regret and did not hold anyone accountable.
History
Before the Sino-Japanese War
Before the Tang Dynasty, few people went from the mainland to Taiwan. They either engaged in agricultural activities or traded with indigenous peoples. They mainly went at spring and returned at autumn. In the Kaiyuan era of the Tang Dynasty, Lin Yan () from Dongshi, Fujian settled in Taiwan after commerce. During the Song and Yuan dynasties, indigenous people in Taiwan did not have enough iron ore, and obtained iron from visiting mainland merchants for food.
During the Dutch Formosa period of Taiwan, a large number of Hoklo people were recruited to cultivate in Taiwan, and then settled there. The genealogies of the Yans of Anhai and the Guos of Dongshi both recorded settling in Taiwan. In 1661, Zheng Chenggong established the Chengtian Prefecture in Taiwan after defeating the Dutch East India Company in the Siege of Fort Zeelandia.
In 1683, Kangxi Emperor sent Shi Lang to attack Taiwan. After the Battle of Penghu, Zheng Keshuang, grandson of Zheng Chenggong, surrendered, so the army of Qing dynasty entered Taiwan. In the next year, a prefecture was set up, to be the ninth in Fujian Province. Shortly afterwards, the Governor of Fujian was allowed to swap Fujian and Taiwan officials. Hence, many officials of Taiwan came from Fujian.
In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, a large number of immigrants came to Taiwan, and there were many conflicts of interest among different ethnic groups. For example, Fujian-Cantonese fighting occurred between Fujian's Hoklos and Hakkas and Chaozhou people in Guangdong, and Quanzhang fighting between Quanzhou and Zhangzhou people. However, during this period, there was also cooperation among ethnic groups in Taiwan. For example, in 1796, Wu Sha had the assistance of people from Zhangzhou, Quanzhou and Hakka people when entering Yilan.
During the Sino-French War in 1884, French warships entered Taiwan seas and disrupted coastal provinces. In 1885 (the 11th year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu), the Qing court set up Fujian-Taiwan Province in response to the border crisis and for defense against foreign invasion. It ruled Taiwan and Taipeh Prefecture of the former Fujian Province, and former Governor of Fujian, Liu Mingchuan, was appointed Governor of Taiwan Province. The funding of the Taiwan Province was mainly borne by Fujian.
Japanese rule
In 1895, the Qing Dynasty was defeated by Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War and was forced to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki to cede Taiwan. Japan ruled over Taiwan for 50 years until it was defeated in World War II in 1945 and ceased to rule Taiwan. During these 50 years, Fujian and Taiwan have not been separated because of government, commerce, performing arts and private affairs.
Soon after the Japanese started ruling Taiwan, they used it as a base to launch an invasion of Fujian. As a crucial part of the Japanese Empire's south invasion strategy, Japan's Governor-General of Taiwan formulated a policy against Fujian, focusing on incorporating Japanese culture by establishing schools, setting up hospitals, constructing shrines and operating newspapers in Taiwan. It had a profound impact on the development of modern Fujian society.
In the early days of Japanese rule in Taiwan, Japanese people did not need a passport to enter the Qing empire via Taiwan. However, as Japanese rogues appeared in Fujian and engaged in illegal activities, the Governor-General of Taiwan promulgated the "Foreign Travel Voucher Rule" in January 1897. At first it was aimed at Japanese people who went to the Qing Empire, but from May 1897, it was extended to Japanese and Taiwanese people who went to China and other countries.
Around 1896, the then Governor-General of Japan, Kodama Gentarō, sent the then abbot of Lanyang Temple, Yilan to Xiamen to preach. Later, the monks of the Higashi Hongan-ji established the "Xiamen Higashi Hongan-ji Preaching Center". On August 24, 1900, the center was burned down. On the 25th, an army was sent to cross the sea in preparation for occupying Xiamen. Western powers reacted strongly. England, Germany, the United States and Russia all sent warships into the port of Xiamen. The incident was called the "Xiamen incident of 1900".
In February 1934, Chen Yi was appointed chairman of the Fujian Provincial Government. During his tenure, the Fujian Provincial Government visited Taiwan twice in 1934 and 1936. When Japan began to rule Taiwan in 1895, Taiwan's economy was not as large as Fujian's. But after nearly 40 years of Japanese operation, Taiwan has far surpassed Fujian in terms of economy. Therefore, the "Taiwan Expedition Report" recommended that Fujian study Taiwan's economic model.
After the Second World War
On August 15, 1945, Japan announced its surrender. On August 29, Chiang Kai-shek appointed Chen Yi, then the head of Fujian Province, as the head of Taiwan Province. On October 25, the Republic of China began to take over Taiwan and Penghu. In 1949, the Republic of China government moved to Taipei after the defeat of the Chinese Civil War; because of it, Fujian and Taiwan faced a long confrontation. In 1979, at the beginning of the Chinese economic reform, the mainland issued the "Message to Compatriots in Taiwan", replacing the original "Liberation of Taiwan" with "peaceful reunification." In response, Chiang Ching-kuo responded with the "Three Noes" in Taiwan.
In November 1980, the first small trade transaction between Fujian and Taiwan was made. In 1981, the first Taiwan-funded enterprise settled in Fuzhou. Since 1981, Fujian has opened four ports as anchorages for Taiwanese ships and reception stations for Taiwan compatriots. This is the first place for cross-strait trade and personnel exchanges after the reform. In 1987, people of Taiwan were allowed to visit relatives on the mainland, and the economic and trade activities between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits rapidly increased. By 1991, Fujian had attracted a total of 1,372 Taiwan-funded contract projects with a total contract value of US$1.07 billion and an actual capital contribution of US$480 million. Taiwanese funds in Fujian accounted for 32.1% of all Taiwanese funds in the mainland China. In 1992, Deng Xiaoping delivered a speech on his southern tour, reiterating that reform and opening up should continue. In April 1993, the "Wang-Koo summit" reached the 1992 Consensus. In 1997, Fujian established the "Cross-Strait (Fuzhou) Agricultural Cooperation Experimental Area" and "Cross-Strait (Zhangzhou) Agricultural Cooperation Experimental Area". By the end of 1999, Fujian Province had accumulatively approved 5,894 Taiwanese-invested enterprises, and the actual amount of capital invested by Taiwanese businessmen was nearly US$8 billion. In 2000, the Democratic Progressive Party served as the ruling party of the Republic of China for the first time. In 2001, Matsu islands and Kinmen in Taiwan, and Mawei and Xiamen in Fujian Province in China realized trade, navigation, and mail, collectively known as the "Mini Three Links". Later, Chen Shui-bian advocated Taiwan independence, affecting the economic and trade cooperation between Fujian and Taiwan. By the end of 2008, Taiwanese businessmen had invested in 9,718 projects in Fujian, and the passenger traffic of the "mini three links" between Fujian and China was 974,000.
In 2015, the Fujian Provincial Department of Transportation stated that it would launch a related management plan for vehicles operating in and out of Pingtan to accelerate cross-strait convenience. Taiwan responded by saying that "Taiwanese cars enter through Pingtan" is a unilateral act of the mainland, and no comment would be made. Politician Lai Cheng-chang compared China's plans to Qin Shi Huang's "writing the same language and having the same roads" (referring to Qin's unification of China).
Geography
Taiwan strait
Fujian and Taiwan are separated by the narrow Taiwan Strait, about 300 kilometers long from north to south, with an average width of 180 kilometers, an average water depth of 50 meters, and an area of about 80,000 square kilometers. The narrowest point of the Taiwan Strait is between Pingtan Island in Fujian and the Hsinchu Commercial Port in Taiwan, with a distance of 130 kilometers; the widest point is from Taiwan's Kenting National Park to Fujian's Dongshan Island, with a distance of 410 kilometers. When visibility is high, Taiwan can be directly seen from Fuzhou.
About 54 million years ago, the central part of the Taiwan Strait began to be flooded. Its middle became a shallow sea and it began to become a strait. During the glacial period of the late Pleistocene, the sea water receded and the surface of the Taiwan Strait dropped by 130 to 180 meters, turning into land, and Taiwan was connected to the mainland. A large number of ancient humans and animals moved from the mainland to Taiwan through the dry Taiwan Strait. Since the Quaternary glacial period (between 18 million and 6000 years ago), the sea has entered the transgressive period, and the sea level has risen about 100 to 130 meters, forming today's sea level. Since then, the exchanges between the two shores have changed from land to sea.
The Penghu Islands are located in the Taiwan Strait, with the Pescadores Channel between it and Taiwan. Early Taiwanese immigrants used the idiom "of ten people going there, six died, three stranded and only one could return" () to describe the difficulty of travel.
Kinmen-Matsu area
The Kinmen-Matsu region consists of two counties, Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu), which belong to Fujian Province of Taiwan, but are actually under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China government in Taipei. Kinmen is located outside the Jiulong River Estuary, overlooking the Xiamen Bay Estuary. It is only 1.8 kilometers away from Dacheng Subdistrict, which is under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China, and 210 kilometers away from Taiwan Island. It includes twelve large and small islands including the Main island (Large Kinmen) and Lesser Kinmen, and has a total area of about 150 square kilometers, and was a battleground for military action across the Taiwan Strait. Matsu is located outside the Min River estuary in Fujian Province. It is about 16 nautical miles away from Fuzhou in the west, 114 nautical miles from Keelung, and 152 nautical miles to Kinmen to the south. The Matsu Islands extend 54 kilometers from north to south, with a total area of 28.8 square kilometers, including 36 large islands and reefs.
Due to the geographical location, Kinmen and Matsu originally belonged to Fujian, and their daily supplies and customs are almost the same as those in southern and eastern Fujian. However, since 1949, the Chinese civil war have made the region a key point of conflict between Taiwan and Fujian. Among them, there have been small battles in the Battle of Guningtou in 1949 and the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1958. On one hand, the region must face the attacks from the mainland, and on the other hand, there are restrictions on battlefield affairs. Furthermore, it must avoid marginalization. In 2001, Fujian's Mawei and Xiamen and the Kinmen-Matsu area realized trade, navigation, and postal services, allowing the islands to be quickly integrated with the world. Kinmen people can use the resources of Fujian Province to promote industry and business.
Military
After 1949, China deployed missiles that could attack Taiwan at any time. Taiwan estimated that there were 1,300 of them, including nearly 100 M-11 missiles deployed at Fujian.
Before the presidential election in Taiwan in 1996, China tested missiles off the coast of Taiwan (the third Taiwan Strait Crisis) and had a negative impact on Fujian–Taiwan relationships. On July 1, 2016, a missile misfired in Taiwan. After flying a certain distance in the direction of Fujian, the missile hit a Taiwanese fishing boat in the southeastern waters of Penghu, causing one death and three injuries of Taiwanese fishermen. The incident was considered by conspiracy theorists to provoke the Communist Party's 95th anniversary on that same day.
The deployment of giant radars in Fujian in mainland China might affect the normal operation of Taiwan's PAVE PAWS radars. In addition, according to media reports, there is a place in Fujian called "Fujian Village" (), which can simulate various important military facilities and military bases in Taiwan for the PLA to exercise against Taiwan, especially aircraft-based assault operations. After the presidential election in Taiwan in 2016, the 31st Army of the People's Liberation Army in Fujian launched a large-scale landing exercise on the southeast coast, and launched long-range rocket and self-propelled artillery, tanks and helicopters. On August 29, 2016, the media reported that the PLA First Army Group, the main force of the PLA's operations against Taiwan, conducted a rocket launch cross-sea strike exercise on the coast of Fujian.
Economics
When Fujian immigrants arrived in Taiwan, they brought rice, sugarcane, camphor, tea and other planting and manufacturing techniques. Fujian Quanzhou Port and Ponkan in Taiwan (now Beigang, Yunlin) have been the main ports for trade between Fujian and Taiwan since the Song Dynasty. According to the Ming Dynasty books Book of Minnan () and Book of Dong Fan (), the merchants in southern Fujian traded agate, porcelain, and clothes with Taiwanese people for specialties such as deer skin and antlers. During the Dutch colonial rule of Taiwan, Taiwan also exported rice, sugar, venison, rattan, metals and herbs brought from the Netherlands to mainland areas such as Fujian. Zheng Chenggong, whose ancestral home is Quanzhou, dominated maritime trade. After ousting the Dutch, he established the Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan and cooperated with the Qing government to make Taiwan a transit point for trade between the mainland, Japan, and Southeast Asia. After the Qing dynasty took over Taiwan, trade between Taiwan and Fujian became more prosperous. There are three main trade routes: Fuzhou-Bangka, Quanzhou-Lukang, and Zhangzhou-Fucheng. After the signing of the "Convention of Peking" in 1860, Taiwan successively opened the four major ports of Tamsui, Keelung, Kaohsiung and Anping. After the establishment of Taiwan Province, the construction of a postal system began, connecting Taiwan with Fujian via the Tamsui-Fuzhou line. The Qing Dynasty also levied food supplies in Taiwan and shipped Fujian for military supplies, known as the "Taiwan Transportation".
In 2006, the Fujian-Taiwan Economic Cooperation Promotion Committee was established in Xiamen, Fujian. Many high-ranking officials attended the ceremony. Lu Shixiang, a senior journalist in Taiwan, believes that "the economic zone on both sides of the Taiwan Straits is a product of China's policy of reuniting with Taiwan through economic reunification".
In 2011, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Development Plan for the Western Taiwan Straits Economic Zone". On April 21, 2015, the Fujian Free-Trade Zone was officially listed and would become a "demonstration of deepening cross-strait economic cooperation". On December 29, the Cross-Strait Arbitration Center was established in Pingtan, which would provide more cross-strait enterprises with facilitated arbitration services. According to customs statistics, the total import and export value of Fujian Province to Taiwan in the first quarter of 2016 was 14.55 billion yuan, a decrease of 11.2% compared with the same period last year. Among them, Fujian's exports to Taiwan were worth 5.53 billion yuan, an increase of 6.1%; imports from Taiwan were 9.02 billion yuan, a decrease of 19.3%; the trade deficit was 3.49 billion yuan, narrowing by 41.4%.
In the past fifteen years, the gap between Fujian and Taiwan's GDP has narrowed rapidly: Fujian's GDP rose from 15% of Taiwan in 2000 to 48% in 2010, and reached 74% in 2014. In 2015, Fujian's GDP exceeded 80% of that of Taiwan. In terms of GDP per capita, Fujian also strives to "close the gap between Taiwan." In 2006, Fujian's per capita GDP was about US$2,700, which is 16.4% of Taiwan's. In 2015, Fujian's per capita GDP was US$10,959, about half of Taiwan's. At present, Fujian Province has four youth entrepreneurship bases across the Taiwan Straits that are licensed by the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.
Races
The ethnic groups in Taiwan are mainly indigenous and Han people. One theory states that there were once brown people and pygmies in Taiwan, but they have become extinct. Today's ethnic minorities in Taiwan are commonly known as the "indigenous people", who arrived in Taiwan earlier than the Hans, and belonged to one of the branches of the Austronesian ethnic group.'
The Han people in Taiwan are divided into three groups: Hoklo people, Hakka people and others (Waishengren). Among them, the Hoklos moved in from southern Fujian and the eastern coast of Guangdong, the Hakkas moved in from the eastern inland of Guangdong and western Fujian, and the other provinces were the people of the mainland that moved to Taiwan with the Kuomintang after the civil war. In the late period of the Polish rule of Taiwan, there were about 25,000 Han men in Taiwan, most of whom were Fujian immigrants. During the rule of Japan in 1903, there were 3.03 million Han Chinese in Taiwan, of which 2.39 million spoke the Minnan dialect. In 1926, the "Taiwanese Ethnic Groups in Taiwanese Nationality Survey" recorded that of Taiwan's 3.76 million people, 3.12 million were ancestors of Fujian Province, accounting for about 83%. A 2004 survey showed that Hans accounted for 98% of Taiwan's population, with the indigenous people accounting for less than 2%. Among them, about 70% were Quanzhang Hoklo (descendants of Fujian immigrants from Fujian with ancestral homes at Quanzhou or Zhangzhou), and about 15% were Hakkas. According to a genetic study in 2007 by Dr. Lin Mali of the Mackay Memorial Hospital, the composition of the ethnic group in Taiwan was 73.5% Minnan, 17.5% Hakka, 7.5% Waishengren who moved to Taiwan after 1945 and 1.5% indigenous.
Common surnames in Taiwan include Chen, Lin, Huang, Zhang, Li, Wang, Wu, Cai, Liu, Yang etc. Most of their ancestors emigrated from Fujian to Taiwan. For example: among the Taiwanese surnamed Huang, 80% originated from Hoklo and about 15% were from Hakka. Most of those Huang-surnamed people people, Hoklo or Hakka, who came to Taiwan in the Ming and Qing dynasties were descendants of Huang Shougong or Huang Qiao, both from Tang dynasty. The ninth-largest surname of Taiwan, Tsai (or Cai), includes nearly one million people. The ancestral home of Cai Wanlin, a well-known entrepreneur in Taiwan, is Jinjiang, Fujian. The five major families in Taiwan: the Keelung Yan family, the Banqiao Lin family, the Wufeng Lin family, the Lukang Gu (辜) family, and the Kaohsiung Chen family are all Fujian immigrants.
On June 8, 2013, to commemorate the birth of "The Founder of Zhangzhou" Tan Goan-Kong's 1357th birthday, Chen Yongmeng, the chairman of the Chen Clan Association of Bingzhou in Xiamen, and his ancestors, together with the clan members of the Chen Clan association of Bingzhou in Taiwan, held a memorial and prayer together in a temple in Shilin, Taipei.
Culture
Historically, Minnan culture has had a considerable influence on Taiwanese culture at the level of clan, literature, opera, craftsmanship, architecture, etc.
Language
The Taiwanese Hokkien dialect originated from Guang prefecture. In terms of language classification, it belongs to the Quanzhang dialect, and the pronunciation is closer to that of the Xiamen dialect and Zhangzhou dialect. However, after 400 years of evolution of Taiwanese Hokkien, the Zhangzhou and Quanzhou dialect merged in Taiwan. In addition, some of the vocabulary were derived from foreign languages such as the Austronesian, Japanese, and Dutch language, which distinguishes between Taiwanese and Fujianese in terms of tone and word content.
In Taiwan, the Quanzhang ethnic group, whose native language is Taiwanese Hokkien, is the largest ethnic group in Taiwan. The Hakkas who switched to the Minnan dialect are called Hoklo Hakkas. According to the 2009 Taiwan Yearbook, about 73% of Taiwanese speak Taiwanese Hokkien. However, some people believe that Taiwanese Hokkien cannot be called the Taiwanese language because Taiwanese Hakka and indigenous languages exist in Taiwan.
Religion
When Fujian immigrants entered Taiwan, most of them invited local deities from their hometown and served them in temples. The three common folk beliefs in Fujian and Taiwan are: Mazu, Madam Linshui, and Baosheng Dadi. Most of the local religions in Taiwan originated in southern Fujian. There are many believers in Mazu, and it is customary to hold worship activities in Fujian every year. Some Taiwanese believe that the Communist Party of China regards religious exchanges between Fujian and Taiwan as a tool for the unification: on the surface, it welcomes visiting exchanges in a warm and friendly manner. In fact, it conducts close monitoring in a hostile manner, as a preparation for Taiwanese unification.
The immigrants from Fujian and other places during the Ming and Qing dynasties brought many religious beliefs, including the Qingshui and Xianying monk beliefs in Anxi County, Quanzhou, and Dingguang Buddha beliefs in western Fujian. The beliefs of monks in Taiwan are mainly Taoist. For example, Taoist temples and temples often worship the Bodhidharma and Ji Gong. Generally speaking, Taoism in Taiwan comes from the Way of the Celestial Masters that is common in Quanzhou and Zhangzhou.
Drama
Taiwanese drama began in the Qing dynasty, and the Liyuan and Gaojia opera popular in Taiwan originated from Quanzhou. The Gezai Opera, which was formed in Taiwan, was developed from Jinge from Zhangzhou, and the Taiwan returned the opera to Fujian.
Tea culture
The diet and decoration in Taiwan are also affected by Fujian customs, and only begun to change in recent decades. Taiwanese cuisine is known as "Soup and Water" (). The Han people who were able to immigrate to Taiwan in the early days (and the majority of them were from southern Fujian) were only males. Because they were busy with farming and reclamation, and their materials were not abundant as in today, for convenience, they often cooked the dish geng which is both nutritious and convenient. Minnan style geng is still loved by various ethnic groups in Taiwan.
Gongfu tea ceremony (Kang-hu-tê) is a very popular tea culture in Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Xiamen, Chaoshan, and Taiwan; the word "Gongfu" stands for a careful and time-consuming tea art spirit. In addition to the preparation of tea, this tea "artwork" is also fully expressed in enjoyment such as drinking and tea set.
Education
In 1687, the Imperial Examination Fujian department gave a separate exam number and a separate admission quota for Taiwan candidates, the first time Taiwanese talent was admitted. Like the provinces in mainland Fujian, many students from Taiwan went to Fuzhou to take examinations. Before and after the exam, they usually stayed in Fujian Province for several months to visit schools and meet friends, forming a regular cultural exchange. Established in 1916, Fukien Christian University recruited several Taiwanese students, including Lin Bingyuan, Lin Chengshui, and Zhong Tianjue during the Japanese rule in Taiwan. Xiamen University, founded in 1921, recruited 13 Taiwanese students from 1921 to 1945.
In 2015, 69 colleges in Fujian Province signed over 500 cooperation and exchange agreements with more than 100 colleges in Taiwan, and introduced 132 outstanding teachers from Taiwan. In 2016, more than 200 full-time teachers from Taiwan would continue to be introduced. At the same time, Fujian also set up a special scholarship for Taiwanese students in colleges to attract Taiwanese students to study in Fujian. According to statistics, Fujianese students studying in Taiwan make up 40% of all Chinese students studying in Taiwan; while the number of Taiwan students studying in Fujian comprises 60% of all Taiwan students studying in Taiwan.
Comparison
See also
Fujian Province
Fujian Province, Republic of China
Cross-strait relations
Kinmen
Legal status of Taiwan
Matsu islands (Lienchiang County)
Republic of China
Three links
First Taiwan Strait crisis
Second Taiwan Strait crisis
Third Taiwan Strait crisis
Notes
References
Further reading
彭文宇《閩台家族社會》，台北：幼獅文化事業有限公司，1997。
赵麟斌《闽台民俗述论》，同济大学出版社，2009年。
《台灣與福建社會文化研究論文集》，臺灣中央硏究院民族學硏究所出版。
Cross-Strait relations
Politics of Taiwan
Politics of China
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Robert Clark Morgan (13 March 1798 – 23 September 1864) was an English sea captain, whaler, diarist, and, in later life, a missionary. He captained the Duke of York, bringing the first settlers to South Australia in 1836. His life in the British whaling industry has been recorded in the book The Man Who Hunted Whales (2011) by Dorothy M. Heinrich. His diaries are held in the State Library of New South Wales.
Birth
Morgan was born on 13 March 1798 at Deptford, Kent, in England. This is recorded in his diary. His parentage is not known. No conclusive record of his birth has been found.
In his diary he does not mention his parentage apart from a few cryptic remarks. On Sunday 5 February 1837 he states, "I could not say that I had a praying Father or a praying mother or a Brother or Sister for I lost them young and knew little of them. I was cast on the world at the age of 11 years to walk the journey of life".
Religious awakening
About ten days before sailing on his first command, he happened upon a revival meeting, and the result to him was eventful. This would have been in 1828. That revival service in Greenwich was led by Isaac English (baker and lay preacher).
Before he took up his first command in December 1828 on the Sir Charles Price he had been a reckless, boisterous profligate, living without a thought of God, except to blaspheme his holy name; but Divine grace now wrought so wondrous a change in him, that when he once more went to sea the old hands amongst his crew could scarcely recognise him for the same man. He who once never gave a command unaccompanied by an oath was now never heard to swear; and such was the force of his character and the power of his example, that in a few months' time not a man of his crew dared to use a profane expression while within his hearing. The discipline of the ship was not a bit lessened, and every one was happier, from the sobriety and good feeling of which the captain set example.
Robert Clark Morgan attended the West Greenwich Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, which was founded in King George Street, very close to Blissett Street, in 1816. The foundation stone of the Wesleyan Chapel in George Street was laid in September 1816 and it was opened on December sixteenth of the same year. It was capable of seating 1,000 people. The building may still be there although it has not been used as a chapel for a very long time.
Wife and family
On 30 December 1822, at Deptford, Kent, at the Church of St. Nicholas, Robert Clark Morgan married Mary Dorrington. He was 25 and she was 22. He had a lifelong devotion to her. He states that they met when very young - the choice of my youth is an expression he often used in his diaries.
The marriage was registered as:
Robert Morgan Clark, bachelor of this Parish and Mary Dorrington, spinster of ('this', written, then deleted) the Parish of Greenwich were married in this Church by Banns this 30th Day of December in the Year one thousand eight hundred and twenty two, by me, D. Jones, Curate.
This Marriage was solemnised between us (signed:) Robert Morgan Clark
Mary Dorrington
In the presence of { X The mark of James Gittens and
{Elizabeth Dorrington
The reason his marriage was solemnised in the surname of Clark is unknown.
They had seven children, most dying shortly after birth. There was a daughter, Louisa Clark Morgan, who died at 7 years of age and only one child, also named Robert Clark Morgan, survived the Captain and his wife. Both were baptised at the George Street Wesleyan chapel.
Royal Navy
He entered the Royal Navy at the age of eleven, his diaries state that at that age (he was) sent to sea on board a man o' war. He talks of the man o' war as "a place where all wickedness is committed with greediness and a place where he saw every vice man is capable of committing".
South Sea whaling
When he left the Royal Navy, in 1814 towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars, he transferred to the merchant marine, whaling. He began as an apprentice on , becoming an able seaman and rising to first and second mate, and became a master at an early age. One of the voyages on Phoenix is described in the book The Dalton Journal edited by Niel Gunson. Morgan is not mentioned by name. However, there is a reference to the second mate, which Morgan would have been at that time.
Morgan was the master of the ships and Recovery, both owned by Daniel Bennett, an owner of many south sea whaling ships, and , owned by the South Australian Company. She was the first pioneer ship to reach South Australia.
His whaling career in the Phoenix was: Apprentice June 1814 - June 1819, Able Seaman June 1819 - Sept 1822, second Mate Jan 1823 - Nov 1825, first Mate May 1826 - Sept 1828. Sir Charles Price, Master Dec 1828 - June 1831. Recovery, Master Dec 1831 - June 1835. Duke of York, Master Feb 1836 - Aug 1837.
In his diary later in life he reminisces about his whaling experiences:
Early this morning I went on deck. It was a fine beautiful morning, a clear atmosphere and fine blue sky with the ocean with only a few rippling over its surface. I saw a ship and went to the masthead and saw she had her boats down. Afterwards I saw the sperm whales she was after. She had taken whales before as she was boiling oil and the smoke was going in volleys from her tryworks. The whales were going as nearly as fast as the ship so we kept pace with them for 2 - 3 hours till at last one boat struck a large whale then another struck the same whale and eventually killed it and took it alongside.
Oh how vivid did this bring back all my past experience in this work. The days of my youth and manhood was spent in this trade. This was the part of it I loved. A sight of a whale would make my heart jump and take away all relish for food. How happy if when a boy I could get to be let down in a boat and after I came to manhood how happy if I could but get to kill a whale and I always managed to get my share. All these things came fresh to my memory and these feelings rose up and caused a feeling not easily described, but I left it all for Jesus and his work. I will not repine how many hairs breaths escapes have I had in whaling, how many times has God spared my life when my boat has been staven, time after time.
South Australia
George Fife Angas appointed Captain Morgan master of . The South Australian Company had fitted her to take the first settlers to South Australia, and then go whaling after that. Duke of York sailed from St Katharine Docks on 26 February 1836. Duke of York finally set sail for the sea on Saturday 19 March 1836, having been unable to get away from the English coast due to bad weather for some five weeks. She carried 42 persons including the crew. (Another source said she left England on 5 April).
Some passengers, including some adults whose passage was charged to the Emigration Fund, were on board as well. The First Report of the Commissioners of Colonisation of South Australia gave the ship's complement as thirty-eight. A list compiled from the Company's records gave the names of twenty passengers and twenty-six seamen, in addition to the Captain.
Several of the passengers listed had significant appointments in the service of the South Australian Company. Samuel Stephens was the first Colonial Manager, and on behalf of his employers, he established the settlement of Kingscote as a site for their projected whaling venture. From its location in relation to the mouth of the River Murray, and the Gulfs of St Vincent and Spencer, he considered it as a possible shipping port for the future.
Another of the passengers, Thomas Hudson Beare, was Superintendent of Buildings and Labourers, while D.H. Schreyvogel was engaged as a clerk. Charles Powell and W. West were gardeners; Henry Mitchell was a butcher; and John Neale was an assistant carpenter.
They reached Kangaroo Island in South Australia and disembarked on 27 July 1836. When in sight of the island the previous evening Captain Morgan, a devout Wesleyan, gathered the passengers for a prayer meeting. When they landed Samuel Stephens named the river Morgan; it is now called Cygnet. Soon after landing Stephens conducted a short service to give thanks for their safe arrival. This was probably the first religious service on the shores of South Australia.
Most of the passengers wished to be the first to land in the new colony, but Captain Morgan settled the dispute very cleverly. He instructed the second mate Robert Russell to have some sailors row the youngest child ashore. This was two and a half year old Elizabeth Beare, daughter of the Company's Deputy Manager, Thomas Hudson Beare. Russell was instructed to carry the child through the shallow water and place her feet on the beach while the adults were at dinner. In doing so she was the first white female to set foot on that strand. When this happened the crew began to cheer and the passengers soon realised that a landing had been made without them knowing it.
The Company had dispatched , , , and , with the intention that after they had delivered their passengers they commence whaling operations.
After leaving Kangaroo Island Duke of York sailed on 20 September 1836 to hunt whales. She was at Hobart Town from 27 September 1836 to 18 October to refresh; from there she proceeded to the South Sea whaling grounds. On Friday, 10 February 1837 Morgan heard of the wreck of the ship Active in the Fiji Islands and they took on board its Master, Captain Dixon, Willings the mate, and Wilkey.
Duke of York was whaling up the coast of Queensland when she was shipwrecked off Port Curtis (in Queensland) on 14 July 1837. Port Curtis is near current day Gladstone, Queensland. The whole ship's company got into three boats and rowed and sailed 300 miles to Brisbane, where they arrived Saturday 26 August 1837 after a most uncomfortable time. On the way down aboriginals killed an English crewman George Glansford, of Barking Essex, and a Rotumah native boy, named Bob, when the boats put in for water. There are parts of Morgan's diary that related to George's death. The Captain said that he was a young man, probably, early 20s. The Captain used to get George down to his cabin for religious instruction. He said that he recalled the Captain writing that George was not a hardened rough type. George apparently accepted his religious teaching. It seems as the captain had a sort of parental role over George. His journal that covers the period that he was master of Duke of York is water marked to attest to this experience.
They finally arrive at Morton Bay and the steamer James Watt took Captain Morgan, the mate and nineteen survivors on to Sydney, leaving the remainder to follow in another vessel.
London Missionary Society
On Tuesday, 6 February 1838, three days after he arrived home from Sydney, he visited the Secretary of the London Missionary Society to see if he could take command of the missionary ship Camden. On 10 February he met the missionary John Williams, who was looking to travel back to Samoa with his wife Mary.
Morgan sailed in the Pacific in Camden from April 1838 till July 1843. He was with Williams in 1839 when Williams and Harris were murdered in the New Hebrides island of Erromango, now Vanuatu. The London Missionary Society invited children all over the country to contribute to buying a ship in Williams's memory so that his work could continue. Seven mission ships named John Williams were successively bought in this way.
When Camden returned to England, Morgan became captain of the London Missionary Society's first such ship, John Williams, and sailed it for 3 voyages: June 1844 - May 1847, October 1847 - May 1850 and July 1851 - June 1855.
In 1841 the Samoan Brethren suggested that he sit for his portrait when next in Sydney. However, it was finally done in London. The original artwork is held in the collections of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England, and was displayed in the offices of the London Missionary Society. There was a copy reproduced in the journal The Congregationalist (June 1962 at p. 3) with an article about him.
Retirement from the sea
Captain Morgan retired from the sea at the end of the voyage in 1855.
As far as can be seen in his diary that covers the period from 16 June 1861 - 29 March 1862 he spent a lot of his time visiting the sick.
His final diary that covers the period 15 March 1863 to 31 March 1864 tells of the voyage the Captain and Mrs Morgan made to Melbourne, Australia on the Yorkshire from about 30 March 1863 to 19 June 1863. It appears they came to be near their only surviving child (Robert Clark Morgan II). The son was baptised on 10 July 1829 at the Wesleyan Chapel George St. Greenwich. In the 1851 census Robert Clark Morgan II (aged 21) was residing in England with his patents at 83A Lower Road Deptford (also in the household was Mary A Wallace, niece, aged 22, born in Greenwich, Kent). His occupation is shown as a clerk at the East India Docks. He had lived in Samoa with his parents for a while and went to Sydney in 1849. He then went to Melbourne arriving in about 1852 at the time of the gold rush. He joined the Victorian civil service on 20 September 1852 as a revenue collector. He died in Melbourne, Australia at the age of 87 years a very wealthy man.
Death
Morgan died 23 September 1864 at Arthur St, South Yarra, Victoria, Australia, at the home of his son, aged 66.
His dying words are that when he was asked by his son if he wanted anything was: "I want more love, more love to the Father, more love to the Son and more love to the Holy Spirit".
The headstone reads:
Sacred to the memory of Robert Clark Morgan who died 23 September 1864, aged 66. He brought the first settlers to South Australia in the Duke of York in 1836 and was subsequently Commander of the London Missionary Ships Society's Camden and John Williams. His consecrated life made him a true Missionary and he was much beloved by the natives of the South Pacific. So he bringeth them into their desired heven.
And on the other side of the headstone –
Also of Mary his beloved wife who died 12 February 1866 aged 64 years, and their daughter Maria Clark who died 18 October 1843, aged 7 years. Precious the sight of the Lord is the death of His Saints
The Reverend A.W. Murray in his book, Forty Years Mission Work, said "I have known many eminent Christians during my not-short life, but I have never met a more lovable, a more Christian like man than was Captain Morgan"
On 12 February 1866, Mary Morgan (née Dorrington) his wife, died at Arthur Street.
On her death certificate it said she was born at Greenwich, Kent. Mary and her husband Captain Morgan are buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery with their son Robert Clark Morgan II and his wife Martha Jane (née Short).
Notes
References
Heinrich, Dorothy M. The Man Who Hunted Whales
Gill, Thomas. A Biographical Sketch of Colonel William Light, the Founder of Adelaide and the First Surveyor-general of the Province of South Australia: Founder of Adelaide: Sailor, Soldier, Artist and the First Surveyor-General of South Australia , Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch.
Newcomb, Harvey. A Cyclopedia of Missions: Containing a Comprehensive View of Missionary Operations Throughout the World : with Geographical Descriptions, and Accounts of the Social, Moral, and Religious Condition of the People”
Williams, John. A Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands: With Remarks Upon the Natural History of the Islands, Origin, Languages, Traditions, and Usages of the Inhabitants. Printed by George Baxter.
O'Connell, James F. Riesenberg, Saul H. A Residence of Eleven Years in New Holland and the Caroline Islands.
Annual Report Society for Nautical Research (London, England)
Christian Work; or, The News of the Churches
Christianity in Polynesia: A Study and a Defence, Joseph King, Joseph Hillery King
Cyclopædia of Christian missions: Their Rise, Progress, and Present Position, John Logan Aikman
Dalton, William: The Dalton journal : two whaling voyages to the South seas, 1823 - 1829 / ed. by Niel Gunson; [Sydney] : National Library of Australia, 1990
Edward Gibbon Wakefield: Builder of the British Commonwealth, Paul Bloomfield
Erromanga: The Martyr Isle, H. A. Robertson, John Fraser
Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle
Facts and incidents in the life and ministry of Thomas Northcote Toller, Thomas Coleman
Foreign Missionary Chronicle
Forty Years Mission Work, Reverent A.W. Murray,
Founders & Pioneers of South Australia: Life Studies of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Charles Sturt, George Fife Angas, Sir John Hindmarsh, William Light, George Gawler, David McLaren, Augustus Kavel, and Francis Cadell, Archibald Grenfell Price
From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions, Ruth Tucker,
Gems from the Coral Islands: Western Polynesia: Comprising the New Hebrides Group, the Loyalty Group, New Caledonia Group, William Gill, William Wyatt Gill
Gems from the Coral Islands; Or, Incidents of Contrast Between Savage and Christian Life of the South Sea Islanders, William Gill, of Rartonga
George Baxter (colour Printer) His Life and Work: A Manual for Collectors, Charles Thomas Courtney Lewis
Great missionaries: a series of biographies, Andrew Thomson
History of the Establishment and Progress of the Christian Religion in the Islands of the South Sea: With Preliminary Notices of the Islands and of Their Inhabitants, Sarah Tappan Smith, A. S.
History of the Propagation of Christianity Among the Heathen Since the Reformation, William Brown
John Howard Angas: Pioneer, Pastoralist, Politician and Philanthropist, H. T. Burgess
John Williams Missionary https://web.archive.org/web/20091028041158/http://www.geocities.com/summerhillroad2002/john_williams.htm
Ellis, James J. John Williams: The Martyr Missionary of Polynesia.
Journal of the Polynesian Society
Lights and Shadows of Sailor Life, as Exemplified in Fifteen Years' Experience, Including the More Thrilling Events of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, and Reminiscences of an Eventful Life on the "mountain Wave.": As Exemplified in Fifteen Years' Experience, Including the More Thrilling Events of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, and Reminiscences of an Eventful Life on the "Mountain Wave", Joseph G. Clark,
Lives of the Leaders of the Church Universal, from Ignatius to the Present Time, Ferdinand Piper, Henry Mitchell MacCracken
London missionary society Catalogue of Engraved Portraits, D. R. Meyers
Man on the Ocean, Robert Michael Ballantyne
Martha Dryland: or, Strength in quietness, memorials of a Sunday-school teacher, James Spence, Martha Dryland
Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. John Williams, Missionary to Polynesia, Ebenezer Prout
Memoirs of the Rev. John Pyer, John Pyer, K. P. Russell
Misi Gete: John Geddie Pioneer Missionary to the New Hebrides, R. S. Miller, John Geddie, Presbyterian Church of Tasmania
Mission to the Islands: The Missionary Voyages in Bass Strait of Canon Marcus Brownrigg, 1872–1885, Marcus Brownrigg, Stephen Murray-Smith
Missionary enterprise in many lands, by H.L.L., Jane Laurie Borthwick
Missionary heroes (in islands of the Pacific), Alexander Williamson
Missionary Life in Samoa: As Exhibited in the Journals of the Late George Archibald Lundie, During the Revival in Tutuila in 1840-41, George Archibald Lundie, Mary Grey Lundie Duncan
Missionary Life in the Southern Seas, James Hutton
Prout, Ebenezer. Missionary Ships Connected With the London Missionary Society
Missions in Western Polynesia: Being Historical Sketches of These Missions, from Their Commencement in 1839 to the Present Time, Archibald Wright Murray, London Missionary Society
Modern Missions: Their Trials and Triumphs: Their Trials and Triumphs, Robert Young,
Nature and the Godly Empire: Science and Evangelical Mission in the Pacific, 1795–1850, Sujit Sivasundaram,
Nineteen Years in Polynesia: Missionary Life, Travels, and Researches in the Islands of the Pacific, George Turner
Of Islands and Men: Studies in Pacific History, Henry Evans Maude
Pearls of the Pacific: Being Sketches of Missionary Life and Work in Samoa and Other Islands in the South Seas, Victor Arnold Barradale, London Missionary Society
Philosophical Magazine: A Journal of Theoretical, Experimental and Applied Physics
Pioneers and Founders, Or, Recent Workers in the Mission Field: Or recent workers in the mission field, Charlotte Mary Yonge
Pioneers of the Christian faith, Alexander Gruar Forbes
Proceedings - Royal Geographical Society of Australasia. South Australian Branch, Royal Geographical Society of Australasia South Australian Branch, Francis Edwards
Puritans in the South Seas, Louis Booker Wright, Mary Isabel Fry
Quarterly Journal, Baxter Society, London
Report of the Directors to the General Meeting of the Missionary Society, London Missionary Society
Robert Clark Morgan (1798–1864) His personal Diary http://www.catalog.slsa.sa.gov.au:1083/record=b1007037
Selections from the Autobiography of the Rev. William Gill: Being Chiefly a Record of His Life as a Missionary in the South Sea Islands, William Gill
South Australian Exploration to 1856, Gwenneth Williams
Sunday at Home, published 1874
Ten Decades: The Australian Centenary Story of the London Missionary Society, Joseph King, London Missionary Society
The Australian Christian Commonwealth, published 1913
The Australian Encyclopædia, Arthur Wilberforce Jose, Herbert James Carter, Thomas George Tucker
The Biblical review, and Congregational magazine [formerly The Congregational magazine
The British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books, 1881–1900, British Museum Dept. of Printed Books, Association of Research Libraries
The Children's missionary newspaper [sometimes entitled The Children's monthly missionary newspaper] ed. by C.H. Bateman
The Christian guardian (and Church of England magazine)
The Christian Miscellany, and Family Visiter
The Christian reformer; or, Unitarian magazine and review [ed. by R. Aspland], Robert Aspland
The Christian Treasury (and missionary review)
The Chronicle, London Missionary Society, London Missionary Society
The Early History of South Australia: A Romantic Experiment in Colonization, 1836–1857
The Eclectic Review, vol. 1-New [8th], William Hendry Stowell
The Encyclopædia of Missions: Descriptive, Historical, Biographical, Statistical. With a Full Assortment of Maps, a Complete Bibliography, and Lists of Bible Versions, Edwin Munsell Bliss
The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle
The Evangelical Register: A Magazine for Promoting the Spread of the Gospel
The Foreign Missionary
The Gospel in All Lands, Methodist Episcopal Church Missionary Society
The History of the British and Foreign Bible Society: From Its Institution in 1804, to the Close of Its Jubilee in 1854 : Compiled at the Request of the Jubilee Committee, George Browne
The History of the London Missionary Society, 1795–1895, Richard Lovett
The history of the London Missionary Society, William Ellis
The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Polynesian Society (N.Z.)
The Juvenile messenger of the Presbyterian Church in England
The Juvenile Missionary Magazine (and Annual), London Missionary Society
The Last Martyrs of Eromanga: Being a Memoir of the Rev. George N. Gordon and Ellen Catherine Powell, His Wife, N. Gordon, James D. Gordon, Ellen C. Gordon, J. D.
The Life of John Williams: Missionary to the South Seas, John Williams
The Local Preachers' Magazine and Christian Family Record: For the Year, Wesleyan Methodist Local Preachers Mutual Aid Association
The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science
The Magazine of Natural Philosophy
The Mariners' Church Gospel Temperance Soldiers' and Sailor's Magazine, Temperance British and Foreign Seamen, Soldiers' and Steamers' Friend Society, Bethel Flag Union
The Martyr Missionary of Erromanga: Or, The Life of John Williams, who was Murdered and Eaten by the Savages in One of the South Sea Islands, Ebenezer Prout
The martyrs of Polynesia memorials of missionaries, native evangelists, and native converts, who have died by the hand of violence, from 1799 to 1871: Memorials of Missionaries, Native Evangelists, and Native Converts, who Have Died by the Hand of Violence, from 1799 to 1871, Archibald Wright Murray
The martyrs of Polynesia, memorials of missionaries [&c.] 1799 to 1871, Archibald Wright Murray
The Missionary Chronicle
The Missionary Herald, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
The Missionary Magazine and Chronicle, London Missionary Society
The Missionary repository for youth, and Sunday school missionary magazine
The Missionary Review of the World
The Mitchell Library, Sydney: Historical and Descriptive Notes, Mitchell Library, Sydney, Ida Leeson
The New Hebrides and Christian missions, with a sketch of the labour traffic, and notes of a cruise through the group in the mission vessel: With a Sketch of the Labour Traffic, and Notes of a Cruise Through the Group in the Mission Vessel, Robert Steel
The New Hebrides and the emergence of condominium
The Picture Printer of the Nineteenth Century, George Baxter, 1804–1867: George Baxter, 1804–1867, Charles Thomas Courtney Lewis
The Pilot, or Sailors' magazine. [Continued as] Sailors' magazine, British and foreign sailors' society, Sailors' magazine
The Presbyterian review and religious journal
The Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter, John W. Sproull, Thomas Sproull, David Burt Willson, James McLeod Willson
The Reformed Presbyterian magazine. Jan. 1855-July 1858, 1862–76
The return to England of the missionary ship, 'John Williams;' containing an account of her voyages as related by captain Morgan [and others], R C Morgan and others
The Scottish Congregational magazine [afterw.] The Scottish Congregationalist. New ser., vol.3-10, new [3rd] ser., vol.6- new [7th], Congregational union of Scotland
The Story of the L.M.S.: With an Appendix Bringing the Story Up to the Year 1904, Charles Silvester Horne
The Story of the Lifu Mission: Illust., S. McFarlane
The Sunday at Home: A Family Magazine for Sabbath Reading
The Sunday school magazine, and journal of Christian instruction. [Continued as] The Sunday school magazine. third ser. 1841-July 1850
The vanguard of the Christian army; or, Sketches of missionary life, by the author of 'Great voyagers', Christian Army
The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine
To Live Among the Stars: Christian Origins in Oceania, John Garrett
Trade, Tactics, and Territory: Britain in the Pacific, 1783–1823, Margaret Steven
Wonders in the Western Isles: Being a Narrative of the Commencement and Progress of Mission Work in Western Polynesia, Archibald Wright Murray
1798 births
1864 deaths
English Congregationalist missionaries
Congregationalist missionaries in French Polynesia
Congregationalist missionaries in Samoa
Congregationalist missionaries in the Cook Islands
Congregationalist missionaries in Vanuatu
History of South Australia
British people in whaling
British expatriates in Samoa
British expatriates in the Cook Islands
British expatriates in Vanuatu
British expatriates in French Polynesia
Australian people in whaling
Sailors from London
People from Deptford
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A wide range of equipment is used during rock or any other type of climbing that includes equipment commonly used to protect a climber against the consequences of a fall.
Rope, cord and webbing
Climbing ropes are typically of kernmantle construction, consisting of a core (kern) of long twisted fibres and an outer sheath (mantle) of woven coloured fibres. The core provides about 70% of the tensile strength, while the sheath is a durable layer that protects the core and gives the rope desirable handling characteristics.
Ropes used for climbing can be divided into two classes: dynamic ropes and low elongation ropes (sometimes called "static" ropes). Dynamic ropes are designed to absorb the energy of a falling climber, and are usually used as belaying ropes. When a climber falls, the rope stretches, reducing the maximum force experienced by the climber, their belayer, and equipment. Low elongation ropes stretch much less, and are usually used in anchoring systems. They are also used for abseiling (rappelling) and as fixed ropes climbed with ascenders.
Modern webbing or "tape" is made of nylon or Spectra/Dyneema, or a combination of the two. Climbing-specific nylon webbing is generally tubular webbing, that is, it is a tube of nylon pressed flat. It is very strong, generally rated in excess of . Dyneema is even stronger, often rated above and as high as . In 2010, UK-based DMM performed fall factor 1 and 2 tests on various Dyneema and Nylon webbings, showing Dyneema slings can fail even under 60 cm falls. Tying knots in Dyneema webbing was proven to have reduced the total amount of supported force by as much as half.
When webbing is sewn or tied together at the ends, it becomes a sling or runner, and if you clip a carabiner to each end of the sling, you have a quickdraw. These loops are made one of two ways—sewn (using reinforced stitching) or tied. Both ways of forming runners have advantages and drawbacks, and it is for the individual climber to choose which to use. Generally speaking, most climbers carry a few of both types. It is also important to note that only nylon can be safely knotted into a runner (usually using a water knot or beer knot), Dyneema is always sewn because the fibers are too slippery to hold a knot under weight.
Webbing has many uses such as:
Extending the distance between protection and a tie-in point.
An anchor around a tree or rock.
An anchor extension or equalization.
Makeshift harnesses.
Carrying equipment (clipped to a sling worn over the shoulder).
Protecting a rope that hangs over a sharp edge (tubular webbing).
Carabiners
Carabiners are metal loops with spring-loaded gates (openings), used as connectors. Once made primarily from steel, almost all carabiners for recreational climbing are now made from a lightweight but very strong aluminum alloy. Steel carabiners are much heavier, but harder wearing, and therefore are often used by instructors when working with groups.
Carabiners exist in various forms; the shape of the carabiner and the type of gate varies according to the use for which it is intended. There are two major varieties: locking and non-locking carabiners. Locking carabiners offer a method of preventing the gate from opening when in use. Locking carabiners are used for important connections, such as at the anchor point or a belay device. There are several different types of locking carabiners, including a twist-lock and a thread-lock. Twist-lock carabiners are commonly referred to as "auto-locking carabiners" due to their spring-loaded locking mechanism. Non-locking carabiners are commonly found as a component of quickdraws.
Carabiners are made with many different types of gates including wire-gate, bent-gate, and straight-gate. The different gates have different strengths and uses. Most locking carabiners utilize a straight-gate. Bent-gate and wire-gate carabiners are usually found on the rope-end of quickdraws, as they facilitate easier rope clipping than straight-gate carabiners.
Carabiners are also known by many slang names including biner (pronounced beaner) or Krab.
The first climber who used a carabiner for climbing was German climber Otto Herzog.
The Maillon (or Maillon Rapide) performs a similar function to a carabiner but instead of a hinge, it has an internally threaded sleeve engaging with threads on each end of the link, and is available in various shapes and sizes. They are very strong but more difficult to open, either deliberately or accidentally, so are used for links which do not need to be released during normal use, such as the center of a harness.
Quickdraws
Quickdraws (often referred to as "draws") are used by climbers to connect ropes to bolt anchors, or to other traditional protection, allowing the rope to move through the anchoring system with minimal friction. A quickdraw consists of two non-locking carabiners connected together by a short, pre-sewn loop of webbing. Alternatively, and quite regularly, the pre-sewn webbing is replaced by a sling of the above-mentioned dyneema/nylon webbing. This is usually of a 60 cm loop and can be tripled over between the carabiners to form a 20 cm loop. Then when more length is needed the sling can be turned back into a 60 cm loop offering more versatility than a pre-sewn loop. Carabiners used for clipping into the protection generally have a straight gate, decreasing the possibility of the carabiner accidentally unclipping from the protection. The carabiner into which the rope is clipped often has a bent gate, so that clipping the rope into this carabiner can be done quickly and easily. Quickdraws are also frequently used in indoor lead climbing. The quickdraw may be pre-attached to the wall. When a climber ascends the wall, (s)he must clip the rope through the quickdraw in order to maintain safety. The safest, easiest and most effective place to clip into a quickdraw is when it is at waist height.
Harnesses
A harness is a system used for connecting the rope to the climber. There are two loops at the front of the harness where the climber ties into the rope at the working end using a figure-eight knot. Most harnesses used in climbing are preconstructed and are worn around the pelvis and hips, although other types are used occasionally.
Different types of climbing warrant particular features for harnesses. Sport climbers typically use minimalistic harnesses, some with sewn-on gear loops. Alpine climbers often choose lightweight harnesses, perhaps with detachable leg loops. Big Wall climbers generally prefer padded waist belts and leg loops. There are also full body harnesses for children, whose pelvises may be too narrow to support a standard harness safely. These harnesses prevent children from falling even when inverted, and are either manufactured for children or constructed out of webbing. Some climbers use full body harnesses when there is a chance of inverting, or when carrying a heavy bag. There are also chest harnesses, which are used only in combination with a sit harness. Test results from UIAA show that chest harnesses do not put more impact on the neck than sit harnesses, giving them the same advantages as full body harness.
Apart from these harnesses, there are also caving and canyoning harnesses, which all serve different purposes. For example, a caving harness is made of tough waterproof and unpadded material, with dual attachment points. Releasing the maillon from these attachment points loosens the harness quickly.
Canyoning harnesses are somewhat like climbing harnesses, often without the padding, but with a seat protector, making it more comfortable to rappel. These usually have a single attachment point of Dyneema.
Belay devices
Belay devices are mechanical friction brake devices used to control a rope when belaying. Their main purpose is to allow the rope to be locked off with minimal effort to arrest a climber's fall. Multiple kinds of belay devices exist, such as tubers (for example the Black Diamond ATC) or active assisted-braking devices (for example the Petzl Grigri), some of which may additionally be used as descenders for controlled descent on a rope, as in abseiling or rappelling.
If a belay device is lost or damaged, a Munter hitch on a carabiner can be used as an improvised passive belay device.
Rappel devices (descenders)
These devices are friction brakes which are designed for descending ropes. Many belay devices can be used as descenders, but there are descenders that are not practical for belaying, since it is too difficult to feed rope through them, or because they do not provide sufficient friction to hold a hard fall.
Figure eight
Sometimes called "figure of eight" or just "eight", this device is most commonly used as a descender, but may also be used as a belay device in the absence of more appropriate equipment.
It is an aluminum or steel "8" shaped device, but comes in several varieties. Its main advantage is efficient heat dissipation. A square eight, used in rescue applications, is better for rappelling than the traditional 8.
Figure eights allow fast but controlled descent on a rope. They are easy to set up and are effective in dissipating the heat caused by friction but can have a tendency to cause a rope to twist. Holding the brake hand off to the side twists the rope, whereas holding the brake hand straight down, parallel to the body, allows a controlled descent without twisting the rope. An 8 descender can wear a rope more quickly than a tube style belay/rappel device because of the many bends it puts into the rope. Many sport climbers also avoid them because of the extra bulk a Figure 8 puts on the climbing rack. However, many ice climbers prefer to use the 8, because it is much easier to thread with stiff or frozen rope. Unlike "bobbin" type descenders, figure eights can be used on doubled ropes. A major disadvantage is that they must be completely detached during fitting or removal so there is a danger of being dropped.
Rescue eight
A rescue eight is a variation of a figure eight, with "ears" or "wings" which prevent the rope from "locking up" or creating a larks head or girth hitch, thus stranding the rappeller on the rope. Rescue eights are frequently made of steel, rather than aluminum.
Rappel rack
This consists of a 'U' shaped frame, attached to the rappeller's harness, into which snap multiple bars that pivot from the other side of the frame. The rope is woven through as many of the bars as are required to provide sufficient friction. This arrangement allows for variations in rope diameter and condition, as well as controlled rate of descent. Racks are seldom used in sport climbing. Cavers often use racks on long rappels because friction can be adjusted by adding or removing bars.
Ascenders
Ascenders are mechanical devices for ascending on a rope. They are also called Jumars, after a popular brand.
Jumars perform the same functionality as friction knots but less effort is needed to use them. A Jumar employs a cam which allows the device to slide freely in one direction but tightly grip the rope when pulled on in the opposite direction. To prevent a jumar from accidentally coming off the rope, a locking carabiner is used. The Jumar is first attached to the climber's harness by a piece of webbing or sling, and then the Jumar is clipped onto the rope and locked. Two ascenders are normally used to climb a fixed rope. For climbing a fixed rope attached to snow anchors on a steep slope, only one Jumar is used as the other hand is used for holding the ice axe.
Another type of ascender allows rope to feed in either direction, slowly, but locks up when pulled quickly. Such self-locking devices allow people to protect solo climbs because the amount of rope is automatically adjusted.
Sling
A sling or runner is an item of climbing equipment consisting of a tied or sewn loop of webbing that can be wrapped around sections of rock, hitched (tied) to other pieces of equipment or even tied directly to a tensioned line using a prusik knot, for anchor extension (to reduce rope drag and for other purposes), equalisation, or climbing the rope.
Daisy chain
A daisy chain is a strap, several feet long and typically constructed from one-inch tubular nylon webbing of the same type used in lengthening straps between anchor-points and the main rope. The webbing is bar tacked at roughly two-inch intervals (or, in the past, tied) to create a length of small loops for attachment. Unlike the use of similar devices in backpacking, daisy chains in technical rock climbing are expected to be of sufficient strength to be "load bearing". Daisy chain pockets however are not rated to full strength, and can only take static loads.
When clipped in, daisy chains should not be shortened by clipping in another pocket to the same carabiner. Failure of the pocket stitching results in the daisy chain disconnecting from the anchor, with potentially fatal consequences. If shortening the daisy chain when clipped in, in order to eliminate dangerous slack, a second carabiner should be used to connect to the anchor.
Though daisy chains are sometimes used by free climbers as a type of sling (a quick attachment used from harness directly to a belay anchor), and for ad hoc purposes similar to those of the backpacker, the canonical use for a daisy chain is in aid climbing, wherein the leader will typically attach one end to the harness, and the other to the top-most anchor placement (by carabiner or fifi hook), particularly after having ascended in étriers as high as possible. This allows the leader to hang from the daisy chain while preparing the next anchor placement. The closely spaced loops allow fine-tuning the length from harness to anchor, thereby allowing the best possible reach for the next placement.
Daisy chains should not be confused with étriers, also known as aiders, which are short ladders made in the same way, but with larger loops, also used in aid climbing, nor with load-limiting devices often known as screamers (from their first trade name) designed to simulate a dynamic belay.
Protection devices
Protection devices, collectively known as rock protection or pro, provide the means to place temporary anchor points on the rock. These devices may be categorized as passive (e.g., nuts) or active such as a spring-loaded camming device or SLCD. Passive protection acts "merely" as a choke when pulled on, and constrictions in the rock prevent it from pulling out. Active protection transforms a pull on the device into an outward pressure on the rock that helps the device set more firmly. The type of protection that is most appropriate varies depending on the nature of the rock.
Nuts
Nuts are manufactured in many different varieties. In their simplest form, they are just a small block of metal attached to a loop of cord or wire. They are used by simply wedging them into narrowing cracks in the rock, then giving them a tug to set them. Nuts are sometimes referred to as stoppers, or by the slang term, wires.
Hexes
Hexes are the oldest form of active protection. They consist of a hollow eccentric hexagonal prism with tapered ends, usually threaded with cord or webbing. They are frequently placed as a passive chock, but are more commonly placed in active camming positions. In the standard active placement, a fall causes the hex to twist in its placement exerting sideways force on the rock in which it is placed. They are manufactured by several firms, with a range of sizes varying from about 10mm thick to 100mm wide. Sides may be straight or curved.
Spring-loaded camming devices
These consist of three or four cams mounted on a common axle or two adjacent axles, in such a way that pulling on the shaft connected to the axle forces the cams to spread further apart. The SLCD is used like a syringe, by pulling the cams via a "trigger" (a small handle) which forces them closer, inserting it into a crack or pocket in the rock, and then releasing the trigger. The springs make the cams expand and grip the rock face securely. A climbing rope may then be attached to the end of the stem via a sling and carabiner. SLCDs are typically designed to maintain a constant camming angle with the rock to ensure that the normal force provided by the cam lobes against the rock face will supply enough friction to hold a cam in equilibrium with the rock. These devices are also known as "friends" for example, as they are in the UK.
Tricams
A tricam is a device that can be used as either active or passive protection. It consists of a shaped aluminium block attached to a length of tape (webbing). The block is shaped so that pulling on the tape makes it cam against the crack, gripping the rock tighter. Careful placement is necessary so that the "cam" does not loosen when not loaded. It is generally not as easy to place or remove as a SLCD but is much cheaper and lighter, and often is the only thing that will work in situations like quarry drill-holes and limestone pockets. The smaller sizes can work well in old piton scars, and can also be used passively as nuts.
Training equipment
Various items of equipment are employed during climbing-specific training to strengthen the climber fingers and tendons.
Hangboards
A wooden or plastic resin board used for improving strength and endurance for climbers. It develops the forearm muscles along with the tendons and pulleys of the fingers. It can also be used to do complimentary exercises to develop the core muscles and antagonist muscles.
They consist of a variety of different-sized pockets and edges that are designed to be hung from with various training protocols. These pockets and edges can range from large jug holds to micro crimp edges. When used effectively they can facilitate huge gains in forearm strength and lock off strength, mostly in the flexor digitorum profundus, Lumbricals of the hand and flexor digitorum superficialis muscles of the forearms. They have to be used with the proper technique and should be avoided if the user is just starting in the sport to prevent injuries, that can happen specially in the A1-4 pulleys or along sections of flexor carpi sheath linking the different FDP or FDS sections in the forearm or in the rotator cuff in the shoulders.
Following a well established hangboard training protocol is a very efficient way of significantly improving the most important physical aspects of rock climbing over the long term, including maximum finger strength, finger contact strength, local anaerobic forearm endurance, and local aerobic forearm endurance. Training is usually done in cycles to mimic the pattern of muscle exertion while climbing, and is built around the concept of Isometric exercise.
Hangboards are usually mounted above a doorway, or anywhere that allows the user's body to hang freely. One of the best available attachment areas is to roof beams. They are also called fingerboards.
Grip savers
A small device that can help in developing the antagonist muscles to those used while gripping with the hand. Use of such a device can prevent the ligament injuries that are frequently experienced by climbers.
Campus boards
A series of horizontal rungs attached to an overhanging surface that may be climbed up and down without the aid of the feet. When used properly, campus boards can improve finger strength and so-called "contact strength".
Bachar ladder
A bachar ladder is made by stringing large diameter PVC piping on webbing and is climbed without using the feet. It can help improve overall upper body strength as well as core strength.
Specialized clothing
In the early days of climbing, many would have considered specialised clothing to be cheating. In fact, the first climbers considered an untucked shirt or unbuttoned sport jacket a sign of weakness. Several climbers even chose to climb barefoot, an act that modern climbers would find amazing. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the trend was to wear tight, brightly coloured clothes often made from Spandex. The trend, in 2019, is to wear looser-fitting clothing. Trousers can be tailored to prevent them from restricting movement by adding features such as articulated knee joints and diamond crotch.
Helmet
The climbing helmet is a piece of safety equipment that primarily protects the skull against falling debris (such as rocks or dropped pieces of protection) and impact forces during a fall. For example, if a lead climber allows the rope to wrap behind an ankle, a fall can flip the climber over and consequently impact the back of the head. Furthermore, any effects of pendulum from a fall that have not been compensated for by the belayer may also result in head injury to the climber. The risk of head injury to a falling climber can be further significantly mitigated by falling correctly.
Climbers may decide whether to wear a helmet based on a number of factors such as the type of climb being attempted, concerns about weight, reductions in agility, added encumbrances, or simple vanity. Additionally, there is less incentive to wear a helmet in artificial climbing environments like indoor climbing walls (where routes and holds are regularly maintained) than on natural multi-pitch routes or ice climbing routes (where falling rocks and/or ice are likely).
Climbing shoes
Specifically designed foot wear is usually worn for climbing. To increase the grip of the foot on a climbing wall or rock face due to friction, the shoe is soled with a vulcanized rubber layer. Usually, shoes are only a few millimetres thick and fit very snugly around the foot. Stiffer shoes are used for "edging", more compliant ones for "smearing". Some have foam padding on the heel to make descents and rappels more comfortable. Climbing shoes can be re-soled which decreases the frequency that shoes need to be replaced.
Belay gloves
A belay glove is a glove constructed from either leather or a synthetic substitute, is used to protect the hands when belaying, and is especially useful if using a classic or body belay. They are also very useful for controlling the belay with single, lead ropes that are 9.5 mm or smaller. Ultimately, belay gloves can lessen the possibility of rope burn and the subsequent involuntary release of the rope.
Miscellaneous equipment
Tape
Medical tape is useful to both prevent and repair minor injuries. For example, tape is often used to fix flappers. Many climbers use tape to bind fingers or wrists to prevent recurring tendon problems. Tape is also highly desirable for protecting hands on climbing routes that consist mostly of repeated hand jamming.
"Tape" can also refer to nylon webbing.
Haul bag
A haul bag refers to a large, tough, and often unwieldy bag into which supplies and climbing equipment can be thrown. A rucksack or day pack often has a webbing and haul loops on the top edge. They are commonly used in big wall climbing due to their tough nature so they and be rubbed along the rock with out the bag breaking. Haul bags are often affectionately known as "pigs" due to their unwieldy nature.
Gear sling
A gear sling is usually used by trad (traditional), or big wall climbers when they have too much gear to fit onto the gear loops of their harnesses. The simplest forms are homemade slings of webbing; more elaborate forms are padded.
Chalk
Chalk is used by nearly all climbers to absorb problematic moisture, often sweat, on the hands. Typically, chalk is stored as a loose powder in a special chalk bag designed to prevent spillage, most often closed with a drawstring. This chalk bag is then hung by a carabiner from the climbing harness or from a simple belt worn around the climber's waist . This allows the climber to re-chalk during the climb with minimal interruption or effort. To prevent excess chalking (which can actually decrease friction), some climbers will store their chalk in a chalk ball, which is then kept in the chalk bag. A chalk ball is a very fine, mesh sack that allows chalk release with minimum leakage when squeezed so that the climber can control the amount of chalk on the hands.
Chalk is most frequently white, and the repeated use of holds by freshly-chalked hands leads to chalky build-up. While this isn't a concern in an indoor gym setting, white chalk build-up on the natural rock of outdoor climbs is considered to be an eyesore at best, and many consider it a legitimate environmental/conservation concern. In the United States, the Bureau of Land Management advocates the use of chalk that matches the color of the native rock. Several popular climbing areas, like Arches National Park in Utah, have banned white chalk, instead allowing the use of rock-colored chalk. A handful of companies make colored chalk or a chalk substitute designed to comply with these environmental conservation measures. Garden of the Gods in Colorado has gone further, banning the use of all chalk and chalk substitutes outright.
References
Climbing equipment
Mountaineering equipment
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Nepal measures about along its Himalayan axis by across. It has an area of .
Nepal is landlocked by China's Tibet Autonomous Region to the north and India on other three sides. West Bengal's narrow Siliguri Corridor separate Nepal and Bangladesh. To the east are Bhutan and India.
Landform regions
For a country of its size, Nepal has tremendous geographic diversity. It rises from as low as elevation in the tropical Terai—the northern rim of the Gangetic Plain, through beyond the perpetual snow line to 90 peaks over including Earth's highest ( Mount Everest or Sagarmatha). In addition to the continuum from tropical warmth to cold comparable to polar regions, average annual precipitation varies from as little as in its narrow proportion of the rainshadow north of the Himalayas to as much as on windward slopes, the maximum mainly resting on the magnitude of the South Asian monsoon.
Forming south-to-north transects, Nepal can be divided into three belts: Terai, Pahad and Himal. In the other direction, it is divided into three major river systems, east to west: Koshi, Gandaki/Narayani and Karnali (including the Mahakali along the western border), all tributaries of the Ganges river. The Ganges-Yarlung Zangbo/Brahmaputra watershed largely coincides with the Nepal-Tibet border, save for certain tributaries rising beyond it.
Himal
Himal Region is a mountainous region containing snow.
The Mountain Region begins where high ridges (Nepali: लेक; lekh) begin substantially rising above into the subalpine and alpine zone which are mainly used for seasonal pasturage. By geographical view, it covers 15% of the total area of Nepal. A few tens kilometers further north the high Himalaya abruptly rise along the Main Central Thrust fault zone above the snow line at . Some 90 of Nepal's peaks exceed and eight exceed including Mount Everest at and Kanchenjunga at .
There are some 20 subranges including the Kanchenjunga massif along with the Mahalangur Himal around Mount Everest. Langtang north of Kathmandu, Annapurna and Manaslu north of Pokhara, then Dhaulagiri further west with Kanjiroba north of Jumla and finally Gurans Himal in the far west.
Trans-Himalayan
The main watershed between the Brahmaputra (called Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet) and the Ganges system (including all of Nepal) actually lies north of the highest ranges. Alpine, often semi-arid valleys—including Humla, Jumla, Dolpo, Mustang, Manang and Khumbu—cut between Himalayan sub ranges or lie north of them.
Some of these valleys historically were more accessible from Tibet than Nepal and are populated by people with Tibetan affinities called Bhotiya or Bhutia including the famous Sherpas in Kumbu valley near Mount Everest. With Chinese cultural hegemony in Tibet itself, these valleys have become repositories of traditional ways. Valleys with better access from the hill regions to the south are culturally linked to Nepal as well as Tibet, notably the Kali Gandaki Gorge where Thakali culture shows influences in both directions.
Permanent villages in the mountain region stand as high as with summer encampments even higher. Bhotiyas graze yaks, grow cold-tolerant crops such as potatoes, barley, buckwheat and millet. They traditionally traded across the mountains, e.g., Tibetan salt for rice from lowlands in Nepal and India. Since trade was restricted in the 1950s they have found work as high altitude porters, guides, cooks and other accessories to tourism and alpinism.
Hilly
Hilly Region is a mountain region which does not generally contain snow. It is situated to the south of the Himal Region (the snowy mountain region). This region begins at the Lower Himalayan Range, where a fault system called the Main Boundary Thrust creates an escarpment high, to a crest between . It covers 68% of the total area of Nepal.
These steep southern slopes are nearly uninhabited, thus an effective buffer between languages and culture in the Terai and Hilly. Paharis mainly populate river and stream bottoms that enable rice cultivation and are warm enough for winter/spring crops of wheat and potato. The increasingly urbanized Kathmandu and Pokhara valleys fall within the Hill region. Newars are an indigenous ethnic group with their own Tibeto-Burman language. The Newar were originally indigenous to the Kathmandu valley but have spread into Pokhara and other towns alongside urbanized Pahari.
Other indigenous Janajati ethnic groups -— natively speaking highly localized Tibeto-Burman languages and dialects -— populate hillsides up to about . This group includes Magar and Kham Magar west of Pokhara, Gurung south of the Annapurnas, Tamang around the periphery of Kathmandu Valley and Rai, Koinch Sunuwar and Limbu further east. Temperate and subtropical fruits are grown as cash crops. Marijuana was grown and processed into Charas (hashish) until international pressure persuaded the government to outlaw it in 1976. There is increasing reliance on animal husbandry with elevation, using land above for summer grazing and moving herds to lower elevations in winter. Grain production has not kept pace with population growth at elevations above where colder temperatures inhibit double cropping. Food deficits drive emigration out of the Pahad in search of employment.
The Hilly ends where ridges begin substantially rising out of the temperate climate zone into subalpine zone above .
Terai
Terai is a low land region containing some hill ranges. Looking out for its coverage, it covers 17% of the total area of Nepal. The Terai (also spelt Tarai) region begins at the Indian border and includes the southernmost part of the flat, intensively farmed Gangetic Plain called the Outer Terai. By the 19th century, timber and other resources were being exported to India. Industrialization based on agricultural products such as jute began in the 1930s and infrastructure such as roadways, railways and electricity were extended across the border before it reached Nepal's Pahad region.
The Outer Terai is culturally more similar to adjacent parts of India's Bihar and Uttar Pradesh than to the Pahad of Nepal. Nepali is taught in schools and often spoken in government offices, however, the local population mostly uses Maithali, Bhojpuri and Tharu languages.
The Outer Terai ends at the base of the first range of foothills called the Siwaliks or Churia. This range has a densely forested skirt of coarse alluvium called the Bhabhar. Below the Bhabhar, finer, less permeable sediments force groundwater to the surface in a zone of springs and marshes. In Persian, terai refers to wet or marshy ground. Before the use of DDT this was dangerously malarial. Nepal's rulers used this for a defensive frontier called the char kose jhadi (four kos forest, one kos equaling about three kilometers or two miles).
Above the Bhabhar belt, the Siwaliks rise to about with peaks as high as , steeper on their southern flanks because of faults are known as the Main Frontal Thrust. This range is composed of poorly consolidated, coarse sediments that do not retain water or support soil development so there is virtually no agricultural potential and sparse population.
In several places beyond the Siwaliks, there are dūn valleys called Inner Terai. These valleys have productive soil but were dangerously malarial except to indigenous Tharu people who had genetic resistance. In the mid-1950s DDT came into use to suppress mosquitos and the way was open to settlement from the land-poor hills, to the detriment of the Tharu.
The Terai ends and the Pahad begin at a higher range of foothills called the Lower Himalayan Range.
Climate
Altitudinal belts
Nepal's latitude is about the same as that of the United States state of Florida, however with elevations ranging from less than to over and precipitation from to over the country has eight climate zones from tropical to perpetual snow.
The tropical zone below experiences frost less than once per decade. It can be subdivided into lower tropical (below 300 meters or 1,000 ft.) with 18% of the nation's land area) and upper (18% of land area) tropical zones. The best mangoes and well as papaya and banana are largely confined to the lower zone. Other fruit such as litchee, jackfruit, citrus and mangoes of lower quality grow in the upper tropical zone as well. Winter crops include grains and vegetables typically grown in temperate climates. The Outer Terai is virtually all in the lower tropical zone. Inner Terai valleys span both tropical zones. The Sivalik Hills are mostly upper tropical. Tropical climate zones extend far upriver valleys across the Middle Hills and even into the Mountain regions.
The subtropical climate zone from occupies 22% of Nepal's land area and is the most prevalent climate of the Middle Hills above river valleys. It experiences frost up to 53 days per year, however, this varies greatly with elevation, proximity to high mountains and terrain either draining or ponding cold air drainage. Crops include rice, maize, millet, wheat, potato, stone fruits and citrus.
The great majority of Nepal's population occupies the tropical and subtropical climate zones. In the Middle Hills, "upper-caste" Hindus are concentrated in tropical valleys which are well suited for rice cultivation while Janajati ethnic groups mostly live above in the subtropical zone and grow other grains more than rice.
The Temperate climate zone from occupies 12% of Nepal's land area and has up to 153 annual days of frost. It is encountered in higher parts of the Middle Hills and throughout much of the Mountain region. Crops include cold-tolerant rice, maize, wheat, barley, potato, apple, walnut, peach, various cole, amaranthus and buckwheat.
The Subalpine zone from occupies 9% of Nepal's land area, mainly in the Mountain and Himalayan regions. It has permanent settlements in the Himalaya, but further south it is only seasonally occupied as pasture for sheep, goats, yak and hybrids in warmer months. There are up to 229 annual days of frost here. Crops include barley, potato, cabbage, cauliflower, amaranthus, buckwheat and apple. Medicinal plants are also gathered.
The Alpine zone from occupies 8% of the country's land area. There are a few permanent settlements above 4,000 meters. There is virtually no plant cultivation although medicinal herbs are gathered. Sheep, goats, yaks and hybrids are pastured in warmer months.
Above 5,000 meters the climate becomes Nival and there is no human habitation or even seasonal use.
Arid and semi-arid land in the rainshadow of high ranges have a Transhimalayan climate. Population density is very low. Cultivation and husbandry conform to subalpine and alpine patterns but depend on snowmelt and streams for irrigation.
Precipitation generally decreases from east to west with increasing distance from the Bay of Bengal, source of the summer monsoon. Eastern Nepal gets about annually; the Kathmandu area about and western Nepal about . This pattern is modified by adiabatic effects as rising air masses cool and drop their moisture content on windward slopes, then warm up as they descend so relative humidity drops. Annual precipitation reaches on windward slopes in the Annapurna Himalaya beyond a relatively low stretch of the Lower Himalayan Range. In rainshadows beyond the high mountains, annual precipitation drops as low as .
Seasons
The year is divided into a wet season from June to September—as summer warmth over Inner Asia creates a low-pressure zone that draws in moist air from the Indian Ocean—and a dry season from October to June as cold temperatures in the vast interior create a high-pressure zone causing dry air to flow outward. April and May are months of intense water stress when cumulative effects of the long dry season are exacerbated by temperatures rising over in the tropical climate belt. Seasonal drought further intensifies in the Siwaliks hills consisting of poorly consolidated, coarse, permeable sediments that do not retain water, so hillsides are often covered with drought-tolerant scrub forest. In fact, much of Nepal's native vegetation adapted to withstand drought, but less so at higher elevations where cooler temperatures mean less water stress.
The summer monsoon may be preceded by a buildup of thunderstorm activity that provides water for rice seedbeds. Sustained rain on average arrives in mid-June as rising temperatures over Inner Asia creates a low-pressure zone that draws in moist air from the Indian Ocean, but this can vary up to a month. Significant failure of monsoon rains historically meant drought and famine while above-normal rains still cause flooding and landslides with losses in human lives, farmland and buildings.
The monsoon also complicates transportation with roads and trails washing out while unpaved roads and airstrips may become unusable and cloud cover reduces safety margins for aviation. Rains diminish in September and generally end by mid-October, ushering in generally cool, clear, and dry weather, as well as the most relaxed and jovial period in Nepal. By this time, the harvest is completed and people are in a festive mood. The two largest and most important Hindu festivals—Dashain and Tihar (Dipawali)—arrive during this period, about one month apart. The post-monsoon season lasts until about December.
After the post-monsoon comes the winter monsoon, a strong northeasterly flow marked by occasional, short rainfalls in the lowlands and plains and snowfalls in the high-altitude areas. In this season the Himalayas function as a barrier to cold air masses from Inner Asia, so southern Nepal and northern India have warmer winters than would otherwise be the case. April and May are dry and hot, especially below where afternoon temperatures may exceed .
Environment
The dramatic changes in elevation along this transect result in a variety of biomes, from tropical savannas along the Indian border, to subtropical broadleaf and coniferous forests in the hills, to temperate broadleaf and coniferous forests on the slopes of the Himalaya, to montane grasslands and shrublands, and finally rock and ice at the highest elevations.
This corresponds to the Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands ecoregion.
Subtropical forests dominate the lower elevations of the Hill region. They form a mosaic running east–west across Nepal, with Himalayan subtropical broadleaf forests between and Himalayan subtropical pine forests between . At higher elevations, to , are found temperate broadleaf forests: eastern Himalayan broadleaf forests to the east of the Gandaki River and western Himalayan broadleaf forests to the west.
The native forests of the Mountain region change from east to west as precipitation decreases. They can be broadly classified by their relation to the Gandaki River. From are the eastern and western Himalayan subalpine conifer forests. To are the eastern and western Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows.
Environmental issues
Natural hazards
Earthquakes, severe thunderstorms (tornadoes are rare), flooding and flash flooding, landslides, drought, and famine depending on the timing, intensity, and duration of the summer monsoons
Environment - current issues
Deforestation (overuse of wood for fuel and lack of alternatives); contaminated water (with human and animal wastes, agricultural runoff, and industrial effluents); wildlife conservation; vehicular emissions
Environment - international agreements
Party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands
Signed, but not ratified: Marine Life Conservation
Existing and proposed dams, barrages and canals for flood control, irrigation and hydroelectric generation
River systems
Nepal has three categories of rivers. The largest systems -— from east to west the Koshi, Gandaki/Narayani, Karnali/Goghra and Mahakali—originate in multiple tributaries rising in or beyond the high Himalaya that maintain substantial flows from snowmelt through the hot, drought-stricken spring before the summer monsoon. These tributaries cross the highest mountains in deep gorges, flow south through the Middle Hills, then join in candelabra-like configuration before crossing the Lower Himalayan Range and emerging onto the plains where they have deposited megafans exceeding in area.
The Koshi is also called Sapta Koshi for its seven Himalayan tributaries in eastern Nepal: Indrawati, Sun Koshi, Tama Koshi, Dudh Koshi, Liku, Arun, and Tamor. The Arun rises in Tibet some beyond Nepal's northern border. A tributary of the Sun Koshi, Bhote Koshi also rises in Tibet and is followed by the Arniko Highway connecting Kathmandu and Lhasa.
The Gandaki/Narayani has seven Himalayan tributaries in the center of the country: Daraundi, Seti Gandaki, Madi, Kali, Marsyandi, Budhi, and Trisuli also called Sapta Gandaki. The Kali Gandaki rises on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau and flows through the semi-independent Kingdom of Mustang, then between the 8,000 meter Dhaulagiri and Annapurna ranges in the world's deepest valley. The Trisuli rises north of the international border inside Tibet. After the seven upper tributaries join, the river becomes the Narayani inside Nepal and is joined by the East Rapti from Chitwan Valley. Crossing into India, its name changes to Gandak.
The Karnali drains western Nepal, with the Bheri and Seti as major tributaries. The upper Bheri drains Dolpo, a remote valley beyond the Dhaulagiri Himalaya with traditional Tibetan cultural affinities. The upper Karnali rises inside Tibet near-sacred Lake Manasarovar and Mount Kailash. The area around these features is the hydrographic nexus of South Asia since it holds the sources of the Indus and its major tributary the Sutlej, the Karnali—a Ganges tributary—and the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra. It is the centre of the universe according to traditional cosmography. The Mahakali or Kali along the Nepal-India border on the west joins the Karnali in India, where the river is known as Goghra or Ghaghara.
Second category rivers rise in the Middle Hills and Lower Himalayan Range, from east to west the Mechi, Kankai and Kamala south of the Kosi; the Bagmati that drains Kathmandu Valley between the Kosi and Gandaki systems, then the West Rapti and the Babai between the Gandaki and Karnali systems. Without glacial sources, annual flow regimes in these rivers are more variable although limited flow persists through the dry season.
Third category rivers rise in the outermost Siwalik foothills and are mostly seasonal.
None of these river systems supports significant commercial navigation. Instead, deep gorges create obstacles to establishing transport and communication networks and de-fragmenting the economy. Foot-trails are still the primary transportation routes in many hill districts.
River management
Rivers in all three categories are capable of causing serious floods. Koshi River in the first category caused a major flood in August 2008 in Bihar state, India after breaking through a poorly maintained embankment just inside Nepal. The West Rapti in the second category is called "Gorakhpur's Sorrow" for its history of urban flooding. Third category Terai rivers are associated with flash floods.
Since uplift and erosion are more or less in equilibrium in the Himalaya, at least where the climate is humid, rapid uplift must be balanced out by annual increments of millions tonnes of sediments washing down from the mountains; then on the plains settling out of suspension on vast alluvial fans over which rivers meander and change course at least every few decades, causing some experts to question whether manmade embankments can contain the problem of flooding. Traditional Mithila culture along the lower Koshi in Nepal and Bihar celebrated the river as the giver of life for its fertile alluvial soil, yet also the taker of life through its catastrophic floods.
Large reservoirs in the Middle Hills may be able to capture peak flows and mitigate downstream flooding, to store surplus monsoon flows for dry season irrigation and to generate electricity. Water for irrigation is especially compelling because the Indian Terai is suspected to have entered a food bubble where dry season crops are dependent on water from tube wells that in the aggregate are unsustainably "mining" groundwater.
Depletion of aquifers without building upstream dams as a sustainable alternative water source could precipitate a Malthusian catastrophe in India's food insecure states Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with over 300 million combined population. With India already experiencing a Naxalite–Maoist insurgency in Bihar, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh, Nepalese reluctance to agree to water projects could even seem an existential threat to India.
As Nepal builds barrages to divert more water for irrigation during the dry season preceding the summer monsoon, there is less for downstream users in Bangladesh and India's Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states. The best solution could be building large upstream reservoirs, to capture and store surplus flows during the summer monsoon as well as providing flood control benefits to Bangladesh and India. Then water-sharing agreements could allocate a portion of the stored water to be left to flow into India during the following dry season.
Nevertheless, building dams in Nepal is controversial for several reasons. First, the region is seismically active. Dam failures caused by earthquakes could cause tremendous death and destruction downstream, particularly on the densely populated Gangetic Plain. Second, global warming has led to the formation of glacial lakes dammed by unstable moraines. Sudden failures of these moraines can cause floods with cascading failures of manmade structures downstream.
Third, sedimentation rates in the Himalaya are extremely high, leading to rapid loss of storage capacity as sediments accumulate behind dams. Fourth, there are complicated questions of cross-border equity in how India and Nepal would share costs and benefits that have proven difficult to resolve in the context of frequent acrimony between the two countries.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Malhotra, op. cit.|url=http://www.ipcs.org/pdf_file/issue/SR95.pdf}}</ref>
Area
Total:
Land:
Water:
Coastline
0 km (landlocked)
Elevation extremes
Lowest point: Kechana Kawal, jhapa district 59 m
Highest point: Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) 8,848 m
Resources and land use
Natural resources
Quartz, water, timber, hydropower, scenic beauty, small deposits of lignite, copper, cobalt, iron ore
Land use
Arable land: 16.0%
Permanent crops: 0.8%
Other: 83.2% (2001)
Irrigated land
11,680 km² (2003) Nearly 50% of arable land
Total renewable water resources
210.2 km3 (2011)
Land cover
ICIMOD’s first and most complete national land cover database of Nepal prepared using public domain Landsat TM data of 2010 shows that show that forest is the dominant form of land cover in Nepal covering 57,538 km2 with a contribution of 39.09% to the total geographical area of the country. Most of this forest cover is broadleaved closed and open forest, which covers 21,200 km2 or 14.4% of the geographical area.
Needleleaved open forest is the least common of the forest areas covering 8267 km2 (5.62%). Agriculture area is significant extending over 43,910 km2 (29.83%). As would be expected, the high mountain area is largely covered by snow and glaciers and barren land.
The Hill region constitutes the largest portion of Nepal, covering 29.5% of the geographical area, and has a large area (19,783 km2) of cultivated or managed lands, natural and semi natural vegetation (22,621 km2) and artificial surfaces (200 km2). The Tarai region has more cultivated or managed land (14,104 km2) and comparatively less natural and semi natural vegetation (4280 km2). The Tarai has only 267 km2 of natural water bodies. The High mountain region has 12,062 km2 of natural water bodies, snow/glaciers and 13,105 km2 barren areas.
Forests
25.4% of Nepal's land area, or about is covered with forest according to FAO figures from 2005. FAO estimates that around 9.6% of Nepal's forest cover consists of primary forest which is relatively intact. About 12.1% Nepal's forest is classified as protected while about 21.4% is conserved according to FAO. About 5.1% Nepal's forests are classified as production forest. Between 2000 and 2005, Nepal lost about of forest. Nepal's 2000–2005 total deforestation rate was about 1.4% per year meaning it lost an average of of forest annually. Nepal's total deforestation rate from 1990 to 2000 was or 2.1% per year. The 2000–2005 true deforestation rate in Nepal, defined as the loss of primary forest, is −0.4% or per year. Forest is not changing in the plan land of Nepal, forest fragmenting on the "Roof of the World".
According to ICIMOD figures from 2010, forest is the dominant form of land cover in Nepal covering 57,538 km2 with a contribution of 39.09% to the total geographical area of the country. Most of this forest cover is broadleaved closed and open forest, which covers 21,200 km2 or 14.4% of the geographical area. Needleleaved open forest is the least common of the forest areas covering 8,267 km2 (5.62%). At national level 64.8% area is covered by core forests of > 500 ha size and 23.8% forests belong to patch and edge category forests. The patch forest constituted 748 km2 at national level, out of which 494 km2 of patch forests are present in hill regions. Middle mountains, Siwaliks and Terai regions have more than 70% of the forest area under core forest category > 500 ha size. The edge forests constituted around 30% of forest area of High Mountain and Hill regions.
Forest Resource Assessment (FRA) which was conducted between 2010 and 2014 by the Ministry of Forest and Soil conservation with the financial and technical help of the Government of Finland shows that 40.36% of the land of Nepal is forested. 4.40% of the land has shrubs and bushes.
Deforestation is driven by multiple processes.
Virtually throughout the nation, over-harvest of firewood remains problematic. Despite the availability of liquefied petroleum gas in towns and cities, firewood is sold more at energy-competitive prices because cutting and selling it is a fallback when better employment opportunities aren't forthcoming. Firewood still supplies 80% of Nepal's energy for heating and cooking. Harvesting construction timber and lopping branches for fodder for cattle and other farm animals are also deforestation/degradation drivers in all geographic zones.
Illegal logging is a problem in the Siwaliks, with sawlogs smuggled into India. Clearing for resettlement and agriculture expansion also causes deforestation as does urban expansion, building infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, electric transmission lines, water tanks, police and army barracks, temples and picnic areas.
In the Middle Hills road construction, reservoirs, transmission lines and extractive manufacturing such as cement factories cause deforestation. In the mountains building hotels, monasteries and trekking trails cause deforestation while timber-smuggling into the Tibet Autonomous Region and over-grazing cause degradation.
Boundaries
Total: 2,926 km
Border countries: China 1,236 km, India 1,690 km
Border crossings with India
While India and Nepal have an open border with no restrictions on movement of their citizens on either side, there are 23 checkpoints for trade purposes. These are listed in clockwise order, east to west. The six in italics''' are also used for entry/exit by third country nationals.
Border crossings with China
See also
Geology of Nepal
List of mountains in Nepal
Valleys of Nepal
References
External links
Atlas of Nepal
Nepal Encyclopedia Geopolitical category
Brief and Concise Geography of Nepal
Nepal
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A Game of Thrones: The Card Game (or AGoT, for short) is an out-of-print collectible card game produced by Fantasy Flight Games. It is based on A Song of Ice and Fire, a series of novels written by George R. R. Martin. The first set was Westeros Edition and was released in August 2002. It has since won two Origins Awards. The game's primary designer is Eric Lang, the lead developer is Nate French, with Damon Stone serving as associate designer.
In the game, players assume the leadership of one of the great houses of Westeros vying for control of King's Landing and the Iron Throne. To accomplish this, players launch military attacks against their opponents, undermine their opponents’ plans with intrigues of their own, and make power plays to win the support of the realm.
Factions
Each house represents one of the main factions involved in the struggle for the Iron Throne emulated by the AGoT LCG. Each house provides different strengths and weaknesses, allowing for various play styles to interact within the same game. Certain cards are restricted to one or two houses, giving each house a unique flavor. Currently, there are eight playable factions in the AGoT LCG. Each is identified by a shield bearing the arms of the house, located in the upper right corner of the card.
Great houses
House Stark, the honorable rulers of the cold North. The Stark shield is a grey direwolf on an ice-white field. Prominent Stark characters include Lord Eddard Stark and his wife Catelyn, their son Robb, as well as Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrik Cassel, and Brynden "The Blackfish" Tully. Common game mechanics include direct kill, deck searching, and improved defense. Many Stark effects are themed around military challenges.
House Lannister, the rich and treacherous residents of Casterly Rock. The Lannister shield is a gold lion on a crimson field. Prominent Lannister characters include Jaime, Cersei, and Tyrion Lannister, as well as Ser Gregor Clegane, Ser Addam Marbrand, and Grand Maester Pycelle. Common game mechanics include card draw, kneeling effects, and trait manipulation. Many Lannister effects are themed around intrigue challenges.
House Baratheon, the royal blood of King Robert, rulers of Dragonstone and Storm's End. The Baratheon shield is a black crowned stag on a gold field. Prominent Baratheon characters include Robert, his brothers Stannis and Renly, as well as Melisandre, Ser Davos Seaworth, and the Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers. Common game mechanics include power manipulation, standing effects, and retrieval of cards from the dead and discard piles. Many House Baratheon effects are themed around power challenges.
House Greyjoy, the rulers of the Iron Islands and the Ironborn raiders who prey on the rest of Westeros. The Greyjoy shield is a gold kraken on a black field. Prominent Greyjoy characters include Theon, Asha, and their father Balon Greyjoy, as well Balon's brothers Euron Crow's Eye and Aeron Damphair. Common game mechanics include location control, the ability to save characters, event cancels, and boosting the strength of attacking characters. Many house Greyjoy effects are themed around winning unopposed challenges.
House Targaryen, the exiled descendants of Aegon the Conqueror and their exotic followers. The Targaryen shield is a red on black, three-headed dragon representing Aegon and his sisters. Prominent Targaryen characters include Daenerys Targaryen and her three dragons, Khal Drogo, Ser Jorah Mormont, and Grey Worm. Common game mechanics include attachment manipulation, strength reducers and kill effects on strength 0 characters (frequently referred to as "burn" effects), and playing characters outside of the marshalling phase. Many Targaryen effects are themed around winning or losing challenges by 4 or more strength.
House Martell, rulers of the desert realm of Dorne, the southernmost region of Westeros. The Martell shield is a red sun pierced by a golden spear, on an orange field. Prominent Martell characters include Doran Martell, Oberyn Martell the Red Viper, his daughters the Sand Snakes, and his niece Arianne Martell. Common game mechanics include icon manipulation, discard effects, stealth, and card draw. Many Martell effects are themed around losing challenges, leading to such effects being referred to as "revenge" effects.
Other factions
Some great houses featured in A Song of Ice and Fire are not represented as individual Houses in the AGoT LCG, but still appear in the game. House Tully is present in the game as a subset of their allies, House Stark. House Lannister and House Baratheon both feature numerous House Tyrell cards, and several significant House Tyrell characters were featured as promotional cards. House Tyrell also features prominently in the A House of Thorns expansion, as does House Bolton to a smaller extent. Other lesser houses also appear in the game, in service to the Great Houses to which they are sworn. Several House Frey cards also make an appearance, primarily as neutral cards. House Arryn is a prominent theme in A House of Talons.
In addition to the noble houses, the AGoT LCG also features many other factions present in A Song of Ice and Fire as part of a particular theme. Example: The Wildlings are featured in Winter Block, while the Asshai'i have been a sub theme over many expansions.
Cards
Each player supplies his or her own deck to play the game. A deck consists of a House Card or Alliance to represent the player's faction, an optional Agenda that modifies his faction, a plot deck that consists of exactly seven Plot cards, and then a main draw deck of at least 60 cards consisting of Characters, Attachments, Locations, and Events.
House cards
Each House card represents one of the main factions involved in the War of the Five Kings. Each House provides different strengths and weaknesses, allowing for various playstyles to interact within the same game. The House card selected will often restrict cards allowed in the remainder of the deck, by limiting cards that are marked as being allowed solely for another House.
Characters, Locations, and Attachments often have a House affiliation, and often are used in decks running a matching House card. Some cards have no House affiliation, and such neutral cards may be used freely in any deck. Cards with House affiliations other than the chosen House card may be used, providing the card itself has no restriction, but require an extra expenditure of resources to bring them into play.
Agenda cards (optional)
Introduced in Valyrian Block, any deck using a House card (but not an Alliance card) may use one Agenda card. Agenda cards either modify the rules for building the player's deck, or grant an in-game advantage, typically at the cost of some other disadvantage such as requiring extra power to win, reduced card draw, or limiting claimed power.
Plot cards
Plot cards are generally regarded as the defining feature of A Game of Thrones: The Card Game. Unlike the shuffled and randomly drawn resource deck, at the beginning of each round, each player chooses a new plot card to be revealed, which will have an effect on the round to be played, allowing for a strategic element to an otherwise random game.
Plot cards indicate the base amount of gold available for the player to use to bring new cards into play during his Marshalling phase (indicated by a number within a gold coin), a base initiative value to determine the order of play for the round (indicated by a number within a diamond), a base claim value to determine the scope of the effect that player winning a challenge (indicated by a number in a silver disk), and a text box detailing any other effects or restrictions on the plot card, including any traits that it might have.
Most plot cards are designed with built-in trade-offs, sacrificing high claim for low income, or some other game mechanic drawback.
Character cards
Character cards represent the unique characters from the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, such as Eddard Stark, as well as generic individuals and massed groupings (such as armies) that can be found there. Generally, characters are the main focus of a deck as they are the principle card type used to participate in challenges, and thus collect the power tokens necessary to win.
Attributes of a Character card consist of a gold cost (generally represented by a number overlaid on a gold coin in the upper left corner), a name across the top that may be preceded by a black flag if the character is unique and/or an infinity symbol if the character is endless, a House affiliation (represented by one or more House shields in the upper right corner, although neutral characters will have a blank shield), artwork depicting the character in the top half of the card, a strength value (represented by a number on a stylized tapestry or a nondescript shield in the middle of the left side), zero to three challenge icons (a red axe represents Military, a green eye represents Intrigue, and a blue crown represents Power) arrayed in the bottom half of the left side, and a text box in the lower half of the card.
Within the textbox may be traits, keywords, other game effects or icons, and flavour text from the novels. Traits are bold and italicized words at the top of the textbox, and usually represent roles or groups within the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, such as Lords or Dothraki. They have no game function themselves, but instead are used to group characters together in order for other game effects to be used by or against varied groups of characters. Keywords are game mechanics defined in the rules that affect that character, such as No Attachments, which prevents any attachments from being placed on that character.
Attachment cards
Attachments are cards that are used exclusively to modify other cards. An attachment may not be in play unless it is attached to the proper type of card, typically a character card unless the attachment itself says otherwise.
Attributes of an Attachment card consist of a gold cost (generally represented by a number overlaid on a gold coin in the upper left corner), a name across the top that may be proceeded by a black flag if the attachment is unique and/or an infinity symbol if the attachment is endless, a House affiliation (represented by one or more House shields in the upper right corner, although neutral attachments will have no shield), artwork depicting the attachment in the top half of the card, and a text box in the lower half of the card. Throughout the Winter block, some cards were printed with a black crow icon in the bottom left corner to indicate the attachment is Doomed. It is unknown if such attachments will appear again.
Within the textbox may be traits, keywords, other game effects or icons, and flavour text from the novels. Traits are bold and italicized words at the top of the textbox, and usually represent types of enhancements, such as skills or titles. They have no game function themselves, but instead are used to group attachments together in order for other game effects to be used by or against varied groups of attachments. Keywords are game mechanics defined in the rules that affect that attachment such as Setup, which allows the attachment to be played at the beginning of the game unlike normal attachments.
Occasionally, game effects can cause cards to become face-down attachments attached to specific other cards. These function the same as normal attachments, except they are treated as having no names, no text, no gold costs, no House affiliations, and are discarded if they are ever forced to leave play.
Location cards
Location cards represent the unique places in the setting of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, such as King's Landing, generic regions such as fiefdoms, and even mobile locations such as sailing vessels and warships. Many locations are used to supply additional income, influence, but a wide variety of effects are present.
Attributes of a Location card consist of a gold cost (generally represented by a number overlaid on a gold coin in the upper left corner), a name across the top that may be preceded by a black flag if the location is unique, a House affiliation (represented by one or more House shields in the upper right corner, although neutral locations will have no shield), artwork depicting the location in the top half of the card, and a text box in the lower half of the card.
Within the textbox may be traits, keywords, other game effects or icons, and flavour text from the novels. Traits are bold and italicized words at the top of the textbox, and usually represent regions within the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, such as Westeros or Dorne. They have no game function themselves, but instead are used to group locations together in order for other game effects to be used by or against varied groups of locations. Keywords are game mechanics defined in the rules that affect that location, such as Limited which restricts the player to playing one such card per round.
Event cards
Event cards represent special actions or happenings from the A Song of Ice and Fire novels that can be used in the course of the game. Certain events may be restricted so that they may only be played by a specific House, and some may only affect cards of a particular House affiliation. Event cards generally have a play restriction or a cost of some type which may be paid in influence, gold, or possibly by modifying the game state of one or more characters, locations, attachments or house card.
Attributes of an Event card consist of a name across the top that may be preceded by a black flag if the event is unique and/or an infinity symbol if the event is endless, artwork depicting the event in the top half of the card, and a text box in the lower half of the card.
Within the textbox may be traits, keywords, but primarily will be one or more game effects, and flavour text from the novels. Traits are bold and italicized words at the top of the textbox, and usually represent specific types of events such as Small Council. They have no game function themselves, but instead are used to group events together in order for other game effects to be used by or against varied groups of events. Keywords are game mechanics defined in the rules that affect that event, such as Deathbound directing a used event to the dead pile instead of the normal discard pile.
Rules
Deck building
Each player participating in an A Game of Thrones game uses two decks: 1) a 7 card plot deck and 2) a 60+ (40+ for draft) card draw deck of characters, attachments, locations, and events. During play the draw deck cards will often end up in other game play areas including the discard pile (cards discarded from play) and the dead pile (cards that were killed or are marked with the Deathbound keyword). Typically, players are only allowed three copies of any particular card (as determined by the card name, regardless of card type or game text similarity) in their draw deck, and only one copy of any particular card, by name, in their plot deck, but these restrictions can be modified by some other cards, such as the Twins agenda.
Winning conditions
A player must earn 15 power tokens between their House card and characters in play to win A Game of Thrones. Numerous cards in the game can change the amount a player or his opponent are required to earn in order to win. Generally, power tokens are earned by winning challenges against an opponent, but some cards allow a player to directly claim power for his House card or characters in other ways.
Setup
At the beginning of the game, each player shuffles their draw deck, and draws the top 7 cards, with an option for a mulligan given to each player to shuffle and draw a new hand. From this initial hand, each player is able to select up to 5 gold worth of characters, locations, and attachments with the Setup keyword, but no more than 1 card of any type with the Limited keyword, from their hand; these cards are placed face-down until all players are ready to reveal their initial cards in play. Once all cards are revealed, players draw cards again until they each have 7 cards in their hand again.
Rounds and phases
The game is played through repeated rounds until one or more players meets the winning condition, or all but one player has met the elimination condition. Rounds are divided into 7 phases, with each phase allowing players to alternate actions that affect the game state in some way.
The first phase every round is the Plot phase. Each player selects one unused plot from his plot deck, and all players reveal their chosen plots simultaneously. Initiative values from plot cards and other resources are tallied, and the player with the highest initiative chooses which player will go first in each phase of the current round. The textbox effects of plots are then resolved in the order chosen by the first player.
In the second phase, the Draw phase, each player is allowed to draw two cards from their draw deck.
Although divided into turns for each player, the Marshalling phase is a single phase for all players. At the beginning of each player's turn in the Marshalling phase, the player counts all income from plot card and any other resources available. The player is then able to bring new resources in the form of characters, locations, and attachments into play by spending the gold. Some events and other triggered effects also require the payment of gold, and unused income is not carried over into other rounds, so resource management is important.
The fourth phase is the Challenge phase. As with the Marshalling phase, each player has a turn to initiate challenges against other players. Generally, players may initiate one each of Military, Intrigue, and Power challenges each round, but several cards can allow exta challenges to be initiated or deny certain challenges at all. Also, in a multiplayer game, he can either use all his challenges on one opponent or divide them among his adversaries. He doesn't have to use all of them. Challenges can be initiated in any order, and require a player to kneel one or more characters with an icon matching the challenge type to begin the challenge. Then, the player being attacked may kneel one or more characters to attempt to oppose the challenge. Once all player actions are taken, the player with the highest total strength in the challenge wins. If the defending player wins, nothing special occurs, but if the attacker wins, then the defender suffers losses depending on the type of challenge initiated.
Military - if the defending player loses, he must kill a number of characters he controls equal to the claim value on the attacker's plot.
Intrigue - if the defending player loses, he must randomly discard a number of cards from hand equal to the claim value on the attacker's plot.
Power - if the defending player loses, he must remove a number of power tokens from his House card equal to the claim value on the attacker's plot, and place them on the attacker's House card.
In the fifth phase, the Dominance phase, each player counts the total strength of all controlled characters that are still standing, plus the amount of gold still remaining in his possession (unspent). The player with the highest total wins dominance that round, and claims 1 power token for his House, taken from the power common pool.
In the Standing phase each player changes each kneeling card to standing.
With the LCG format came a new phase, the Taxation phase, in which each player returns unspent gold to the common pool (in the CCG format, players could not use gold outside of their turn in the Marshalling phase).
Common game terms and rules
Kneeling and standing are the two possible game states for each card in the game, although there is a special moribund state that's further explained in the faq on FFG website. Standing cards are upright, and are ready for use to pay for effects, or to initiate or defend challenges. Kneeling cards are rotated 90 degrees to the side, to indicate that they've been used to pay for an effect, or to initiate or defend a challenge. Some game effects are able to kneel cards (changing them from standing to kneeling) or stand cards (changing them from kneeling to standing) in order to manipulate the resources a player has available.
Unique cards represent the special individuals, places, items, and happenings in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. Unique cards may not be played if the player already has a copy of that card in play, or if a copy of that card can be found in the player's dead pile. Unique characters, locations, and attachments may be placed with copies that are already in play to serve as duplicates. Duplicates may be discarded to save the unique card from being killed or discard.
Triggered Effects are a type of game effect that a player chooses to use in order to change the game state in some way. Triggered effects are indicated by a bold name of a phase (one of Plot, Draw, Marshalling, Challenges, Dominance, or Standing) or Any phase to indicate when the effect may be used. Another timing word that may precede a triggered effect is a bold Response, which indicates that the effect may only be used in response to another occurrence in the game. Triggered abilities are a subset of triggered effects, and are specifically triggered effects that are written on cards currently in play.
Passive Effects are game effects that have no bold timing restriction indicated, but instead happen whenever certain prerequisites are met, such as a character coming into play.
Constant Abilities are game effects written on cards in play that have an ongoing effect on the game state.
Influence is indicated on various characters, locations, and attachments in the game by a number on a scroll in the textbox of the card. In the Valyrian block, influence was introduced as an additional resource to manage, requiring players to kneel one or more cards with a specific total amount of influence to pay for an effect.
Normally, once a game effect has been initiated, it fully resolves without an interruption. However, once an effect is begun, there is a chance for specific effects to Cancel the initial effect. If the effect is cancelled, all costs stay paid, use limitations remain, but the effects do not occur.
Kill means removing a character from play, and placing that character in the dead pile. Kill effects only work on characters, including other cards that are currently functioning as characters, but other cards can be placed in the dead pile through various game effects, such as the Deathbound keyword.
Discard, when occurring without the modifier from hand, means to take a card that is in play, and place it in the discard pile.
Generally, whenever an effect targets a card to be killed or discarded, players are given a chance to Save the card from the effect, either by discarding a duplicate of the targeted card or by using another game effect. If a card is saved, it is not removed from play, and it is not considered killed or discarded.
Organized play
Night's Watch
Fantasy Flight Games has an official group of volunteers that organize sanctioned tournaments for A Game of Thrones. The Night's Watch are named after the guardians of The Wall in northern Westeros in the fictional setting of A Song of Ice and Fire. These volunteers organize tournaments, arrange demonstration games for new and interested players, and hand out promotional materials provided by FFG.
Prizes
Gold dragons are a form of loyalty points that were awarded for purchases and playing in tournaments. The packaging for booster packs, starter decks, and premium starter decks all have an image of a gold coin with a number representing the number of gold dragons earned, being one, two, and five respectively. Players could also earn certificates of eighty, forty, and twenty gold dragons for placing first, second, or third (respectively) in a sanctioned tournament. Gold dragons were redeemable to FFG for older promotional cards, booster packs, and other specialized AGoT products, such as card binders, stone house cards, and house-specific power tokens. The Gold Dragon redemption program officially ended on June 30, 2008.
Promotional cards were frequently provided to Night's Watch volunteers by FFG to be given to participants of sanctioned tournaments. Sometimes these cards follow a special theme for the tournament, but that is not always the case. Usually the cards can legally be included in any deck, but some are marked with a skull icon to indicate they cannot be included unless special rules are in effect for that tournament.
Tournaments
There are several different official tournament types sanctioned by FFG. In the Classic format, players bring their own decks, which may include cards from any set, as long as the card is not on the banned list. In Standard format, players bring their own decks, which may only include cards from the most recent blocks. , only cards released since Valyrian block are legal in Standard format. In Limited format, players instead build their decks at the tournament, using provided draft packs (in Limited - Draft) or starter decks (in Limited - Sealed Deck) and booster packs.
Aside from the restrictions on usable card pool, FFG places no limits on how Night's Watch volunteers organize the tournaments.
Thrones-Tournaments.com tries to provide a central list of all international and local store tournaments, to help gamers find play to compete in.
World and Continental Championships
The A Game of Thrones World Championships were held yearly at Gen Con Indy until 2012, when they moved to Fantasy Flight's Event Centre in Minneapolis, with Gencon being redesignated North American Championships. Part of the winner's prize is the opportunity to design their own card.
The 2003 world champion Casey Galvan was later hired by FFG to serve as lead developer, a position he occupied until fall of 2005. He now has a consulting role at FFG. The runner up in that tournament, Nate French, came on as lead developer in Spring of 2006 and continues to this day.
Podcasts
There are a number of podcasts focused on the A Game of Thrones: The Living Card Game, such as the weekly Beyond The Wall, 2 Champs and a Chump, Great Beards of Westeros and the Spanish language 2 Maestros 1 Pupilo.
Sets and expansions
When it was released, A Game of Thrones was introduced as a CCG. The cards for the AGoT CCG were organized into numerous sets and expansions that could be mixed together and used interchangeably. A block consisted of a base set, up to two expansion sets, a premium starter, and often one or more promotional cards.
Typically, a base set consisted of 240 cards available in either starter decks, consisting of a mix of fixed cards and a random assortment of other cards, or booster packs, consisting of 11 randomly sorted cards, of which 1 is rare, 3 are uncommon, and 7 are common. Booster packs were generally shipped in groups of 36, creating booster boxes. Expansion sets typically contained 150 cards, and were only distributed as booster packs similar to those of a base set. Premium Starters consisted of two or three pre-built decks of fixed cards, typically reprints from earlier sets, but also introducing 10 new cards as well.
Within a base set and expansion set, the cards were divided into groups based on their frequency of appearance, with rare cards being included the least frequent, uncommon cards slightly more frequent, and common cards being the most frequent. Also available in regular and premium starters were a specific number of fixed cards that always appeared in that packaging. Also available were draft packs which consisted of 1 draft card, 5 plot cards, 6 house cards and 8 locations that are generally useful to any deck, and allow for a more level competitive field during draft tournaments.
In late 2007, the A Game of Thrones CCG was converted to the A Game of Thrones LCG (Living Card Game), which ended the random booster packs in favor of fixed packs, called Chapter Packs, released on a roughly monthly basis. Chapter packs consist of 60 fixed cards - 3 copies of 20 cards. The Core Set consists of 4 preconstructed decks consisting of Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, and Targaryen, and is marketed as a starting point for a new player. It will also include a game board, power tokens, gold tokens, as well as game pieces to use for the multiplayer titles. Along with the switch to the LCG, there has also been more of a focus on the multiplayer aspect of the game, now referred to as Melee, rather than the head to head play, now referred to as Joust.
Promotional cards are usually provided as prizes for participating in FFG registered tournaments, by attending certain conventions, or buying other A Game of Thrones promotional packages.
Industry awards
The game's first base set - Westeros Edition - won the 2002 Origins Award for Best Trading Card Game of 2002. The second base set - Ice and Fire Edition - followed next year and won the 2003 Origins Award for Best Card Game Expansion or Supplement of 2003.
References
External links
agameofthrones.com - Official website
Card games introduced in 2002
Collectible card games
Dedicated deck card games
Fantasy games
Fantasy Flight Games games
Games based on A Song of Ice and Fire
Origins Award winners
Christian T. Petersen games
Eric M. Lang games
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Andrew Michael Bogut (born 28 November 1984) is an Australian former basketball player who spent the majority of his professional career playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The 7 feet tall (213 cm) center was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the first overall pick in the 2005 NBA draft. He earned All-NBA Third Team honors with the Bucks in 2010. He was traded to the Golden State Warriors in 2012, and was named NBA All-Defensive Second Team in 2015, when he won an NBA championship with the Warriors.
Bogut played college basketball for two years with the Utah Utes, and earned national player of the year honors in 2005. He declared for the NBA draft, and became the first Australian to be the NBA's first overall pick. In his first year with the Bucks, Bogut was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team in 2006. He earned all-league honors in 2010 after averaging a career-high 15.9 points along with 10.2 rebounds per game. He missed most of 2011–12 with an ankle injury, when he was traded to Golden State. After the Warriors won the NBA Finals in 2015, Bogut helped the Warriors win an NBA-record 73 games in 2015–16. He was traded to the Dallas Mavericks, where he played briefly before other short stints with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers. In 2018, he returned to his home country to play for the Sydney Kings of the National Basketball League (NBL) and won the NBL MVP honours. Following the 2018–19 NBL season, Bogut signed back with the Warriors. He then returned to the Kings for a second season before retiring in 2020.
Described as one of the leading faces of Australian basketball, Bogut has been credited for serving as a cornerstone of the Australian national team, for paving the way for an entire generation of Australian players in the NBA and in playing a leading role in re-vitalising the Australian NBL.
Early life
Bogut was born in Melbourne in 1984. His parents, Michael and Anne, had immigrated to Australia from Croatia in the 1970s. Bogut grew up playing Australian rules football and tennis in addition to basketball. As a child, he patterned his basketball game after Toni Kukoč, a Croatian NBA player who spent the majority of the 1990s playing for the Chicago Bulls. As a 15-year-old, he was cut from the Victoria junior state representative team. In response to this setback, Bogut began to improve his game with the help of Siniša Marković, a professional basketball player from Yugoslavia. Bogut's emergence began after he earned a roster spot with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in 2002. He competed in the South East Australian Basketball League (SEABL) in 2002 and 2003, helping the AIS win the East Conference title in his first season. He later joined the U-19 Australian junior national team, and was named the most valuable player of the 2003 FIBA Under-19 World Cup, in Greece, after leading the Emus to the title. In eight games, he averaged 26.3 points, 17 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1.5 blocks per game, and he shot 61 percent from the field and 74 percent from the free throw line. One of the highlights of his MVP conquest was a 22-point, 18-rebound performance, in a 106–85 win over the US, in the quarter-finals of the medal round.
College career
As a freshman at Utah in 2003–04, Bogut averaged 12.5 points and 9.9 rebounds in 33 games. He subsequently earned CollegeInsider.com All-Freshman Team honours, Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year, second-team All-Mountain West Conference, and NABC second-team All-District 13.
As a sophomore in 2004–05, Bogut started all 35 games for the Utes, leading them to a 29–6 record, the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, and a Mountain West Conference championship. He led the nation with 26 double-doubles and scored in double figures in 37 consecutive games dating back to the final two games of the 2003–04 season to have the sixth-longest streak in the country. He ranked 19th in the NCAA in scoring (20.4 ppg), second in rebounding (12.2 rpg) and eighth in field goal percentage (62.0), and led the Mountain West Conference in scoring, rebounding and field goal percentage. He became one of 31 Utah players all-time to score 1,000 points in his career, but just the third to reach that mark in two seasons. He was named the 2004–05 national player of the year by ESPN.com and Basketball Times, and earned Associated Press first-team All-American and leading vote getter, becoming the 11th Ute all-time to earn All-America honours. He also earned Naismith College Player of the Year honours and the John R. Wooden Award. He later had his No. 4 jersey retired by Utah.
Professional career
Milwaukee Bucks (2005–2012)
Bogut was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the first overall pick in the 2005 NBA draft, becoming the first Australian player and the second Utah player (the first being Bill McGill) to be drafted number one overall. As a rookie in 2005–06, he earned All-Rookie First Team honours and finished third in votes for the NBA Rookie of the Year Award. He played in all 82 regular season games for the Bucks in his first season, averaging 9.4 points and 7.0 rebounds per game.
Bogut's second season in the league was cut short after he sprained his left foot and was put on the injured reserve for the final 15 games. He had previously played in 153 consecutive games. He improved his numbers in 2006–07 to 12.3 points and 8.8 rebounds per game.
In the 2007–08 NBA season, Bogut set career-highs in points (14.3), rebounds (9.8), blocks (1.7), steals (0.8) and minutes (34.9) per game. He tallied a career-high 29 points against the Phoenix Suns in December and finished 9th in the NBA in blocks, 11th in rebounding and 12th in double-doubles (38). He started in 78 games for the Bucks, missing just four games through injury.
Bogut appeared in just 36 games for the Bucks in 2008–09, missing the final 31 games of the season with a stress fracture in his lower back. He faced more time on the sidelines during the 2009–10 season due to a strained ligament and bruise in his left leg. On 3 April 2010, near the end of a breakout season, Bogut suffered a major injury. That night, in a game against the Phoenix Suns at the Bradley Center, Bogut had a chance to score on a fast break attempt. As he went up, Amar'e Stoudemire appeared to make some contact with Bogut and he lost his balance while completing the dunk. He hung onto the rim for a brief moment to try to right himself but could not, and fell at an awkward angle. Placing his right arm out to break the fall, Bogut landed with all of his weight on top of his wrist and his arm twisted as he landed. The next day, Bogut was diagnosed with a broken hand, dislocated elbow and sprained wrist, injuries that kept him out of for the remainder of the 2009–10 season. In what was a breakout season for Bogut, he finished with averages of 15.9 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game, earning All-NBA Third Team honours, becoming first Bucks player named to the squad since Michael Redd in 2003–04. Bogut helped the Bucks to a 46–36 record, their most wins since going 50–32 in 2000–01, and their first playoff appearance since 2006.
Bogut returned to the Bucks' line-up in 2010–11, playing in 65 games and leading the league in blocks with 2.6 per game.
During the 2011 NBA lockout, Bogut chose to return home to Australia and play in the NBL for the 2011–12 season. He was linked to the Gold Coast Blaze, Adelaide 36ers and the team he supported when growing up, the Sydney Kings. Ultimately, he chose the Kings (who finished last in 2010–11), but the insurance to cover his remaining $39m contract with the Bucks could not be resolved, leaving the Kings and the NBL without his on-court services. Following the breakdown in contract negotiations over the insurance money, Bogut stated he would like to join the Kings coaching staff in a bid not only to help the club, but help raise the NBL's profile. This, however, did not occur and he later returned to the Bucks following the conclusion of the lockout. On 25 January 2012, he fractured his ankle, ruling him out for the rest of the season.
Golden State Warriors (2012–2016)
On 13 March 2012, Bogut and Stephen Jackson were traded to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for Monta Ellis, Ekpe Udoh and Kwame Brown. According to the Warriors, he underwent surgery in April to "clean out loose particles and bone spurs in the ankle". He sat out the 2012–13 preseason, but played in four of the first five regular season games, averaging just 6.0 points and 3.8 rebounds. He was then declared out indefinitely. He received Regenokine treatment to aid his recovery in late November, and it was also revealed that his procedure in April was more serious microfracture surgery than previously thought. Bogut returned on 28 January 2013, recording 12 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 4 blocks in a road win over the Toronto Raptors. On 2 May 2013, in Game 6 of the first round of the playoffs, Bogut recorded playoff career-highs of 14 points and 21 rebounds. He also became the first Warriors player with 20 playoff rebounds since Larry Smith had 23 on 12 May 1987 against the Los Angeles Lakers.
On 25 October 2013, Bogut signed a three-year contract extension with the Warriors. Despite another injury-riddled season in 2013–14, Bogut still finished 10th in NBA Defensive Player of the Year voting and became the first player in franchise history to average at least 10 rebounds per game while shooting 60 percent from the field.
After playing well through the first 19 games of the 2014–15 season, Bogut injured his right knee on 8 December 2014 against the Minnesota Timberwolves and subsequently missed 12 games. He returned to action off the bench against Indiana on 7 January 2015, recording 4 points and 8 rebounds in a 117–102 win. On 2 March 2015, he scored a season-high 16 points in a loss to the Brooklyn Nets. On 7 April 2015, he recorded 8 points and a career-high 9 blocks in a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. Bogut and the Warriors won the 2015 NBA Finals after defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers in six games.
Disappointed in the way he ended the 2014–15 season, Bogut removed all processed sugars from his diet during the 2015 off-season and subsequently came into training camp in October 2015 with improved athleticism, having dropped 10 kilograms. On 9 February 2016, Bogut had a season-best game with 13 points, 11 rebounds, three steals and a season-high six blocked shots in a 123–110 win over the Houston Rockets. The Warriors broke the NBA record for most wins in a season with 73, eclipsing the 72 wins set by the 1995–96 Chicago Bulls. In Game 5 of the Warriors' Conference Finals match-up with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Bogut recorded a playoff career-high 15 points and 14 rebounds to help the Warriors send the series to a Game 6 with a 120–111 win at home, cutting the Thunder's advantage in the series to 3–2. The Warriors went on to win the series in seven games and advanced to the NBA Finals for the second straight year. The Warriors would again face the Cleveland Cavaliers. On 15 June 2016, he was ruled out for six to eight weeks with a left knee injury. The injury occurred during Game 5 of the NBA Finals. The Warriors went on to lose the series in seven games.
Dallas Mavericks (2016–2017)
On 7 July 2016, Bogut was traded, along with a future second-round pick, to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for a future conditional second-round pick. The trade was made by the Warriors to free up salary cap space for their signing of Kevin Durant. Bogut made his debut for the Mavericks in their season opener on 26 October 2016, recording six points, six rebounds, three assists and one block in a 130–121 overtime loss to the Indiana Pacers. On 3 December, he had a game-high 11 rebounds and a season-high eight points in a 107–82 win over the Chicago Bulls. He went on to miss 11 games in December with a right knee injury, and a further six games in January with a right hamstring strain.
On 23 February 2017, Bogut was traded, along with Justin Anderson and a protected first-round pick, to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Nerlens Noel. Four days later, he was waived by the 76ers.
Cleveland Cavaliers (2017)
On 2 March 2017, Bogut signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Four days later, Bogut broke his left leg 56 seconds into his Cleveland debut. Initial X-rays revealed a fractured tibia; he was subsequently taken to the Cleveland Clinic for further tests. There his tibia was set, and was scheduled to undergo a non-surgical treatment and recovery plan. He was subsequently ruled out for the remainder of the regular season and playoffs. As a result, on 13 March 2017, he was waived by the Cavaliers.
Los Angeles Lakers (2017–2018)
On 19 September 2017, Bogut signed with the Los Angeles Lakers. He made his debut for the Lakers in their season opener on 19 October 2017, committing three fouls and three turnovers in a 108–92 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. On 6 January 2018, Bogut was waived by the Lakers. He did not return to the NBA that season in order to remain in Australia with his pregnant wife.
Sydney Kings (2018–2019)
On 24 April 2018, Bogut signed a two-year deal with the Sydney Kings of the Australian National Basketball League. At the conclusion of the 2018–19 regular season, Bogut was named the NBL Most Valuable Player after averaging 11.6 points per game to go with 329 rebounds, 98 assists and 77 blocked shots. He was also named the Best Defensive Player and earned All-NBL First Team honours. He helped the Kings reach the playoffs with an 18–10 record and a third-place finish, before losing 2–0 to Melbourne United in the semi-finals. In 30 total games, he averaged 11.4 points, a league-high 11.6 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.7 blocks in 29.7 minutes per game.
Return to Golden State (2019)
On 6 March 2019, after the conclusion of the 2018–19 NBL season, Bogut signed with the Golden State Warriors for the remainder of the 2018–19 NBA season. His deal with the Warriors was allowed by the Kings with the condition that he honoured the second year of his two-year contract. The Warriors reached the 2019 NBA Finals, where they lost in six games to the Toronto Raptors.
Return to the Kings (2019–2020)
Bogut rejoined the Sydney Kings for the 2019–20 NBL season and helped them win the minor premiership with a first-place finish and a 20–8 record. He was named to the All-NBL Second Team. On 25 May 2020, Bogut announced that he would not be re-signing with the Kings.
Bogut had two surgeries throughout 2020, one to remove a bone spur in his ankle and the other to help with sciatica in his lower back.
On 1 December 2020, Bogut announced his retirement from basketball, citing numerous injury issues as the main reason.
National team career
Bogut started for the Boomers at the 2004 Athens Olympics, averaging 13.7 points, 9 rebounds and 1.2 blocked shots and shooting 58.0% from the field. He represented Australia again in the 2006 FIBA World Championship. Australia advanced to the Round of 16 before losing to the United States. He averaged 12.8 points per game and 6.2 rebounds per game during the tournament, leading Australia in both categories. He started for the Boomers at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In 2012, he was unable to play for the Boomers in the London Olympics, as he had previously broken his left ankle in January during the 2011–12 NBA season.
On 14 July 2015, Bogut was named in the Australian Boomers squad for their European tour and the 2015 FIBA Oceania Championship. The following year, he was a member of the Boomers team that finished in fourth place at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. This equaled Australia's best ever finish at the Olympics, with the Boomers having also finished fourth in 1988, 1996 and 2000. In 2019, the Boomers again finished fourth, this time at the FIBA Basketball World Cup in China.
Political views
In November and December 2016, on Twitter, Bogut made a series of tweets in which he implied he believed elements of the Pizzagate hoax were real. At the time, the hoax had rapidly evolved into an elaborate conspiracy theory that involved ostensible child sex trafficking, Hillary Clinton, political strategist John Podesta and other Democrats and it was supposedly centered in the (actually nonexistent) basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor.
In 2021, via his Instagram account, Bogut went on an 11 minute rant blasting the Australian and Victorian government's handling of lockdowns. The lockdown, Victoria's sixth, prompted Bogut to vent his frustration due to Foodbank Victoria being closed because of concerns it was a coronavirus hotspot, despite one thousand police patrolling protests the day prior and that the lockdowns were already disproportionately affecting the working class. Bogut also said that he had been approached to promote public health measures for money but declined, further stating without significant evidence that many other unnamed Australian celebrities were being compensated for urging that the public adhere to pandemic control measures despite many celebrities not being subject to the same rules as the working class, Bogut urged other celebrities to speak out for residents proclaiming "The silence was deafening".
Personal life
Bogut and his wife Jessica have two sons, Luka and Nikola.
Career statistics
NBA
Regular season
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee
| style="background:#cfecec;"| 82* || 77 || 28.6 || .533 || .000 || .629 || 7.0 || 2.3 || .6 || .8 || 9.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee
| 66 || 66 || 34.2 || .553 || .200 || .577 || 8.8 || 3.0 || .7 || .5 || 12.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee
| 78 || 78 || 34.9 || .511 || .000 || .587 || 9.8 || 2.6 || .8 || 1.7 || 14.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee
| 36 || 33 || 31.2 || .577 || || .571 || 10.3 || 2.0 || .6 || 1.0 || 11.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee
| 69 || 69 || 32.3 || .520 || .000 || .629 || 10.2 || 1.8 || .6 || 2.5 || 15.9
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee
| 65 || 65 || 35.3 || .495 || .000 || .442 || 11.1 || 2.0 || .7 ||style="background:#cfecec;"|2.6* || 12.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee
| 12 || 12 || 30.3 || .449 || .000 || .609 || 8.3 || 2.6 || 1.0 || 2.0 || 11.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 32 || 32 || 24.6 || .451 || 1.000 || .500 || 7.7 || 2.1 || .6 || 1.7 || 5.8
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 67 || 67 || 26.4 || .627 || || .344 || 10.0 || 1.7 || .7 || 1.8 || 7.3
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 67 || 65 || 23.6 || .563 || || .524 || 8.1 || 2.7 || .6 || 1.7 || 6.3
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 70 || 66 || 20.7 || .627 || 1.000 || .480 || 7.0 || 2.3 || .5 || 1.6 || 5.4
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Dallas
| 26 || 21 || 22.4 || .469 || .000 || .273 || 8.3 || 1.9 || .5 || 1.0 || 3.0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Cleveland
| 1 || 0 || 1.0 || || || || .0 || .0 || .0 || .0 || .0
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|L.A. Lakers
| 24 || 5 || 9.0 || .680 || || 1.000 || 3.3 || .6 || .2 || .5 || 1.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 11 || 5 || 12.2 || .500 || || 1.000 || 5.0 || 1.0 || .3 || .7 || 3.5
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 706 || 661 || 28.1 || .535 || .120 || .557 || 8.7 || 2.2 || .6 || 1.5 || 9.6
Playoffs
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2006
| style="text-align:left;"|Milwaukee
| 5 || 5 || 34.4 || .435 || || .375 || 6.2 || 3.4 || .6 || .0 || 8.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2013
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 12 || 12 || 27.3 || .582 || || .348 || 10.9 || 1.8 || .5 || 1.5 || 7.2
|-
| style="text-align:left; background:#afe6ba;"|2015
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 19 || 18 || 23.2 || .560 || .000 || .385 || 8.1 || 1.9 || .6 || 1.8 || 4.7
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2016
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 22 || 22 || 16.6 || .623 || .000 || .357 || 5.7 || 1.4 || .6 || 1.6 || 4.6
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2019
| style="text-align:left;"|Golden State
| 19 || 6 || 9.4 || .649 || || .800 || 3.9 || 1.1 || .3 || .3 || 2.7
|- class="sortbottom"
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 77 || 63 || 19.3 || .573 || .000 || .397 || 6.7 || 1.6 || .5 || 1.2 || 4.8
College
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2003–04
| style="text-align:left;"|Utah
| 33 || 33 || 30.4 || .577 || .364 || .640 || 9.9 || 2.2 || .4 || 1.3 || 12.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;"|2004–05
| style="text-align:left;"|Utah
| 35 || 35 || 35.0 || .620 || .360 || .692 || 12.2 || 2.3 || 1.0 || 1.9 || 20.4
|-
| style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
| 68 || 68 || 32.7 || .603 || .361 || .674 || 11.1 || 2.3 || .7 || 1.6 || 16.6
References
External links
Meet "The Mentor" at nba.com
1984 births
Living people
2006 FIBA World Championship players
2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup players
All-American college men's basketball players
Australian expatriate basketball people in the United States
Australian Institute of Sport basketball players
Australian people of Croatian descent
Basketball players at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Basketball players at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Basketball players from Melbourne
Centers (basketball)
Cleveland Cavaliers players
Dallas Mavericks players
Golden State Warriors players
Los Angeles Lakers players
Milwaukee Bucks draft picks
Milwaukee Bucks players
National Basketball Association players from Australia
Australian men's basketball players
Olympic basketball players of Australia
People educated at Lake Ginninderra College
Sydney Kings players
Utah Utes men's basketball players
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Shaariibuugiin Altantuyaa (Mongolian: Шаарийбуугийн Алтантуяа; sometimes also Altantuya Shaariibuu; 6 May 1978 – 18 October 2006), a Mongolian national, was a murder victim who was either murdered by PETN and RDX explosives or was somehow killed first and her remains destroyed with explosives on 18 October 2006 in a deserted area in Shah Alam, Malaysia. Her murder case is significant in contemporary Malaysian politics due to the alleged involvement of persons close to the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak.
The Shah Alam High Court originally acquitted Abdul Razak Baginda and meted out the death sentence to two of the accused, Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, on 9 April 2009, wrapping up the 159-day trial. On 23 August 2013, Sirul and Azilah were acquitted by the Court of Appeal, sparking controversy. On 13 January 2015, the Federal Court overturned the acquittal of both individuals, finding them both guilty of murder and sentenced both of them to death. However, Sirul fled to Australia and efforts by the Malaysian authorities to extradite him were hampered by existing Australian legislation prohibiting the extradition of individuals to countries with the death penalty.
After the Malaysian 14th general election marking a historic defeat for the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and some relevant parties including Altantuyaa's father have hoped for further investigations to find the motive of murder and bring justice to the case. Sirul said he was willing to reveal what really happened in the murder case provided he was given a full pardon to come back to Malaysia.
On 16 December 2019, convicted killer Azilah Hadri has made an allegation from death row in Kajang Prison - the order to kill Altantuya Shaariibuu came from former Prime Minister Najib Razak and the latter's close associate, Abdul Razak Baginda.
Background
Altantuyaa was born in 1978. She and her sister were raised in the Soviet Union where Altantuyaa attended first grade in elementary school. She was reportedly fluent in Mongolian, Russian, Chinese and English, and knew some French.
Altantuyaa moved back to Mongolia in 1990 and a few years later, married a Mongolian techno singer, Maadai. They had a child in 1996 but the marriage ended in divorce and the child went to live with Altantuyaa's parents. Despite training as a teacher, Altantuyaa briefly moved to France where she attended modelling school before returning to Mongolia.
Altantuyaa remarried and had another child in 2003, but the second marriage also ended in divorce. The second child also lives with Altantuyaa's parents. Her mother said she has never been a model. She worked as a translator and often travelled out of Mongolia to countries like China, Singapore, and Malaysia. She went to Malaysia a number of times: the first in 1995 and the second in early 2006.
Relations to Najib Razak
It was alleged that she was introduced by the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, to Abdul Razak Baginda, a defence analyst from the Malaysian Strategic Research Centre, at an international diamond convention in Hong Kong, and had a relationship with Baginda while accompanying him to Paris to work as a translator during his negotiations to purchase s from France for the Malaysian government. Hong Kong-based news website Asia Sentinel revealed in a series of photographs that Altantuyaa was in France during which time the two quickly became romantically involved.
However, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the Malaysia Today editor, was the one who connected Najib Razak with the Altantuyaa murders. Najib Razak denied all allegations as there were no concrete proof about him knowing Altantuyaa. Raja Petra retracted his allegation of the involvement of Najib Razak and Rosmah Mansor after the case were brought to court. Afraid of being prosecuted by the Malaysian courts for giving a false statement, Raja Petra fled to England, leaving his wife and children behind. In addition, a former aide to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Muhamad Rahimi Osman, claimed that Sirul's family was enticed to make a false statement that Najib was involved in Altantuyaa's murder.
According to reports by the French newspaper Liberation, Altantuyaa found out that one of the parties involved in negotiations, French company Armaris, paid out commissions of 114 million euros for the deal (reportedly one billion euros or RM4.7 billion for the purchase of three submarines). The commission was credited in the accounts of a company controlled by Abdul Razak, Perimekar. A letter written by Altantuyaa and found after her death shows that she had been blackmailing Mr. Baginda, seeking US$500,000 to remain silent about her knowledge of the deal. SUARAM secretariat, Cynthia Gabriel, commented that the Paris Courts have "extended its investigations with circumstances that led to Altantuyaa's death. However, the French Courts are not investigating the murder of Altantuyaa as its focus is on the alleged corruption conducted by DCNS with regards to the sale of the Scorpène submarines, but would deliberate on the murder in the course of the inquiry. On 25 June 2012, a French police investigation revealed that there were no immigration records of an “Altantuyaa Shaariibuu” entering France from 1999 to 2006. The same report noted instead the entry of a SHAARIYBUU Bayasgalan, who bore similarities to, but was not conclusively identified as Altantuyaa, as well as pointed out that Najib's entourage might have entered France through diplomatic channels as there was evidence of his presence but no corresponding immigration record. During the trial into Altantuyaa's death, Baginda told investigators that he had travelled with her to France in 2005. Records seized by French investigators from DCN's former financial chief described Altantuyaa as Baginda's translator. On the other hand, Rosana Weili, the Director of Perimekar, claimed that the negotiations were conducted in English as the French negotiators spoke English. Rosana also had "no knowledge of anyone by the name of Altantuyaa" in the negotiation team.
An article from The Star reported that when the deal was signed on 5 June 2002 between the Malaysian government and the submarine manufacturers, Abdul Razak Baginda had not met Altantuyaa as they only met two years after the agreement was signed.
Murder
When it was realised she was missing on 19 October 2006, her cousin lodged a police report and sought help from the Mongolian embassy in Bangkok. The Malaysian police found fragments of bone, later verified as hers, in forested land near the Subang Dam in Puncak Alam, Shah Alam. Police investigation of her remains revealed that she was shot twice before C-4 explosives were used on her remains, although there has been later suggestion that the C-4 explosives may have killed her. However, lab results confirmed the explosives used was PETN and RDX, a type of explosive used in quarries which could have been sourced from nearby quarries. When her remains were found their identity could only be confirmed with a DNA test.
Members of the police force were arrested during the murder investigation. The two murder suspects have been named as Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, 30, and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar, 35. They had been members of the elite Special Actions Unit () and were both assigned, albeit as bodyguards, to the office of the Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. Abdul Razak has been charged with abetting the murder.
Trial and verdict
Trial
According to court testimony by Altantuyaa's cousin Burmaa Oyunchimeg, Altantuyaa had shown Burmaa a photograph of 3 persons taking a meal together: Altantuyaa, Razak Baginda, and a government official. When questioned by the lawyer of the victim's family, Karpal Singh, Burmaa identified the official as then Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak.
On 22 July 2008, Karpal Singh, who also holds a watching brief for the victim's family, filed a notice of motion to call 4 new witnesses, including Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, to testify in the trial, as well as sought to recall the first prosecution witness in the trial, private detective P. Balasubramaniam, for further examination. According to Karpal, Najib's testimony would be able to introduce fresh evidence to the case, and his requests were justifiable as per Section 425 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), which allows a court to "summon or recall any person as a witness in a trial", as well as "summon or recall any such person if his evidence appears to the court to be essential to the just decision of the case." On 23 July 2008, the petition notice was rejected by the High Court. The High Court judge, Mohd Zaki, stated that "only the parties involved, namely the prosecution and the defence" had a right to submit the petition.
Acquittal of Abdul Razak Baginda
On 31 October 2008, the High Court acquitted Abdul Razak Baginda of abetment in the murder of Altantuyaa, with the prosecution saying they would appeal the acquittal. To date, the appeal has yet to transpire.
Defence and witness
Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar were ordered to enter their defence and testify under oath. On 10 November 2008, it was announced that the murder trial has been postponed to January 2009 to allow the defence more time to prepare and gather witnesses. The witnesses sought included Malaysia Today editor, Raja Petra Kamarudin and private investigator, P. Balasubramaniam, who was unlocatable at that time.
The request by the defence counsel for Sirul Azhar and Azilah to get statements from all prosecution witnesses was rejected with the reason given that "witness statements recorded under Section 112 of the Criminal Procedure Code is privileged". This would have included the witness statement of Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's former aide-de-camp DSP Musa Safri, which would have been used to rebut Abdul Razak's affidavit.
On 3 February 2009, Sirul Azhar pleaded with the court to not pass the death sentence on him, as he was like "a black sheep that has to be sacrificed" to protect unnamed people who have never been brought to court or faced questioning. "I have no reason to cause hurt, what's more to take the life of the victim in such a cruel manner... I appeal to the court, which has the powers to determine if I live or die, not to sentence me so as to fulfil others' plans for me."
Death sentence
On 9 April 2009, High Court Judge Zaki Yasin ruled that Sirul Azhar's and Azilah's statements were "unbelievable" as both of the accused only blamed each other. Both policemen were sentenced to death for the murder of Altantuyaa. Wrapping up the 159-day trial, Zaki said both of them failed to raise any reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case. However, their lawyers planned to file an appeal. Both policemen showed no emotion when they heard that they were sentenced to be hanged until dead. Their family members accept the court's decision and denied any political elements in the verdict. The two policemen appealed their sentence in late August. The Court of Appeal has fixed a date for their appellate hearing for 10 June 2013.
Shariibuu Setev's lawyers have applied for a review the Attorney-General's decision not to appeal Abdul Razak Baginda's acquittal in the murder of Shariibuu's daughter, Altantuyaa. The application was set to be heard at the High Court on 8 July 2009. Dr. Shariibuu later withdrew the application but said he would still proceed with the claim against Abdul Razak, Azilah, Sirul Azhar, and the Government of Malaysia for damages over Altantuyaa's death.
Sirul and Azilah were acquitted on 23 August 2013 by the Court of Appeal. Several reasons were given for the acquittal such as the failure of the prosecution to provide a strong motive for the two men to murder the victim and the failure to call for the cross-examination of Najib's aide Musa Safri and Najib Razak. The acquittals have drawn the derision from many Malaysians, including Altantuyaa's father.
The prosecution immediately made an appeal to the Federal Court over the acquittal of the Azhar and Sirul which was heard on 23 June 2014. The Federal Court on 13 January 2015 overturned the acquittal of both individuals, finding them both guilty of murder and sentenced both of them to death. It was later discovered that Sirul did not show up during the appeal hearing and was believed to be in Australia. The Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, has made an extradition request to Australia calling for Sirul, but faces difficulty as Australian law does not allow for the extradition of individuals to another jurisdiction if they could be sentenced to death. Sirul was detained by Australian immigration authorities in Brisbane, Queensland, on 20 January 2015 after an Interpol red notice was issued for his arrest.
Finding the motive of murder
Three years after the Federal Court found both policemen guilty of murder and sentenced them to death, Dr Shaariibuu Setev, the father of Altantuyaa, made a report to request the police to reopen the case of the murder as his lawyer Ramkarpal said that the motive of the murder needed to be investigated and who ordered the killing be brought to justice.
Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who led Pakatan Harapan to defeat Barisan Nasional in the 14th General Election (GE14) on 9 May 2018, said the murder case should be reopened and agreed that it warranted further investigation.
After the GE14, Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga asked Dr Mahathir Mohamad to help bring justice in the murder case of Altantuyaa while Malaysian political leader Anwar Ibrahim said Sirul should face a new trial as the judges' ruling was compromised and the reluctance of the judges to call relevant witnesses made a mockery of the law.
Azilah's death sentence finalized
On 8 December 2020, it was reported that Azilah, then 43 years old, had lost his appeal, in which he sought a re-trial and review of his conviction and sentence. The Federal Court of Malaysia dismissed the appeal as they found the case does not carry any breach or miscarriage of justice to warrant a review of the case. This particular appeal was Azilah's final legal attempt to escape from the gallows, and the failure of the appeal had effectively finalized Azilah's death sentence, confirming the former police officer to hang on a later date for Altantuyaa's murder. Azilah remains on death row since 8 December 2020.
Controversies
Statutory declaration by Raja Petra
In a statutory declaration in his sedition trial in June 2008, Raja Petra said that he was "reliably informed" that Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor (the wife of Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak) was one of three individuals who were present at the crime scene when Altantuyaa Shaariibuu was murdered on 19 October 2006. He wrote that Najib's wife, Rosmah Mansor, and Acting Colonel Abdul Aziz Buyong and his wife, Norhayati, Rosmah's aide-de-camp, were present at the scene of the murder and that Abdul Aziz Buyong was the individual who placed C4 plastic explosive on Altantuya's body and blew it up. Dr Shaariibuu Setev, the father of Altantuyaa Shaariibuu, has asked the police to conduct a thorough investigation into an allegation by Raja Petra saying the police should look seriously into the allegations as it might provide them with fresh evidence in their case.
In retaliation, the two people named in Raja Petra's statutory declaration on 18 June 2008, Lt-Col Abdul Aziz Buyong and his wife Lt-Col Norhayati Hassan, as having been present at the murder scene of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu are suing Raja Petra for defamation. Abdul Aziz is seeking an apology from Raja Petra to be published in certain websites and newspapers, the removal of the statutory declaration from his blog and damages of RM1 million.
Raja Petra's counsel, J. Chandra, later insinuated that the article titled ‘Let's send the Altantuya murderers to hell’ on 25 April under Raja Petra's byline was posted without his consent or knowledge.
Raja Petra appeared to have distanced himself from the statutory declaration in a television interview with TV3, saying its accusations linking Najib Razak and Rosmah Mansor to the murder were repeating information passed onto him by opposition figures, rather than information he knew to be true himself. He appeared to have stated that he did not genuinely believe that Rosmah was at the murder scene. The Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement alleged that the interview had been heavily edited and spin doctored in favour of Prime Minister Najib Razak just in time for the upcoming Sarawak state elections. Raja Petra also denied that he did not believe Rosmah was at the scene saying that the interview was "chopped up". He also later clarified and pointed out that he had always been consistent in relation to the statutory declaration, saying that he had never directly accused Rosmah of being at the scene of the murder, merely repeating what was told to him.
Statutory declaration by P. Balasubramaniam
A second statutory declaration was filed on 1 July 2008 by Abdul Razak Baginda's private investigator P. Balasubramaniam, disclosing then deputy Prime Minister Najib's links and Altantuyaa. Bala said the police omitted information about the relationship between Najib and Altantuyaa during their investigation. In the statutory declaration Abdul Razak had told Balasubramaniam that the deputy prime minister had a sexual relationship with Altantuyaa and that the trio had dined together in Paris. Detailed conversations in a statutory declaration revealed that Abdul Razak had in effect inherited Altantuyaa as a lover from Najib, who passed her on because he did not want to be harassed as a deputy prime minister. Among other lurid details, Balasubramaniam described text messages between Najib and Abdul Razak in which the latter was asking for help to avoid arrest, implying Najib personally interfered with the murder investigation. In making his statutory declaration, Balasubramaniam mentioned that a man in a blue Proton Saga happened to be driving past the home of defense analyst Abdul Razak Baginda at that time of the day before Altantuyaa was reported missing on 19 October 2006 and revealed that the man was Nasir Safar, the special advisor to Najib Razak.
Former deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, has called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry to look into the case. However, the RCI has not been convened on this issue.
It has been claimed that Balasubramaniam's allegation on the involvement of Najib Razak on the murders of Altantuyaa could have political motivations, as the press conference for the allegation was made at the national PKR Headquarters.
Retraction and disappearance
The following day Balasubramaniam retracted the statutory declaration he made on 1 July 2008 proffered a second statutory declaration and that erased all traces of allegations that referred to Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Altantuyaa Shaariibuu's murder. There were accusations that this new statutory declaration could have been due to intimidation or inducement, and was done not on his own free will. Bala's first lawyer Americk Singh Sidhu said he was not able to get in touch with Bala despite repeated phone calls to Bala's cell phone The Malaysian police said on Sunday 6 July that they have asked Interpol to help find the private investigator who had been reported missing since making explosive claims linking the deputy premier to a murder. Bala's nephew filed a missing person's report saying the investigator and his family had disappeared. It was discovered on 10 July that Balasubramaniam's house in Taman Pelangi had been broken into, but police have yet to ascertain whether anything was stolen. Balasubramaniam was said to have taken refuge in a neighbouring country with his wife and children.
It is assumed that Bala was running away because he either received death threats or a massive bribe from Najib.
Reappearance and retraction of second statutory declaration
After his reappearance, Bala claimed that he signed the second statutory declaration without even reading it, claiming he was threatened. Bala also said that a member of Najib's family, Najib's younger brother Nazim Abdul Razak, teaming up with Deepak Jaikishan, a businessman with connections to Najib Razak's family, made Bala withdraw his first statutory declaration and offered him RM5 million to do so, but that his first declaration was true. Balasubramaniam has declined to meet the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission in Singapore to give his testimony about allegations surrounding the murder of Altantuyaa Shaariibuu as he has made his personal security a prerequisite for his testimony. The MACC also wanted to classify all correspondences between Balasubramaniam and their organisation as ‘secrets’ under the Official Secrets Act, which according to Bala's lawyer there was a disagreement to this demand.
Bala continued to reiterate that the first statutory declaration he signed was the truth. He actively campaigned for the Malaysian opposition giving talks on Najib and Rosmah's alleged role in the death of Altantuyaa until his eventual death by heart attack on 15 March 2013.
Deepak Jaikishan
Malaysian businessman Deepak Jaikishan in the later part of 2012 held several press conferences regarding his role in the retraction of Balasubramaniam's first statutory declaration and the supposed coercion in making Bala sign the second declaration. He also made damning accusations against Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor, implying they were the ones giving instructions and had prior knowledge of coverup of the first statutory declaration. He further revealed that it was the Prime Minister's brother Nazim Abdul Razak who paid off Balasubramaniam. In a biography launched on 19 March 2013, Rosmah Mansor denied any involvement with the murder of Altantuya, stating that she was attending a special session with the Islamic Orphans Welfare Association on the day in question, and describing the accusations against her as "slander".
Deepak has also made claims denying that he is not currently being sponsored by the Malaysian opposition Pakatan Rakyat or its leader Anwar Ibrahim, despite claims by certain parties that he is. Deepak has expressed regret in being involved in the Altantuya affair. Anwar has continually denied that he is behind the recent exposes by Deepak. The revelations come at the same time when Deepak is being involved in a lawsuit against the government and governing party UMNO in a land deal case. He also said that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission(MACC) is more interested in ignoring this matter rather than starting an investigation.
He made further references to the lawyer duo who were involved in the drafting the second statutory declaration, implying they came from the law firm of Zul Rafique & Partners of Kuala Lumpur. It was later inferred to the Malaysian Bar Council by several parties, including activist Haris Ibrahim and Robert Phang that the lawyer duo was Tan Sri Cecil Abraham and his son. The Bar Council has promised to begin investigations into the drafting of the second statutory declaration. Bala's lawyer, Americk Sidhu, revealed in a Bar Council investigation hearings that Cecil Abraham confirmed to him that he was the one who drafted Bala's second statutory declaration under instructions from Najib himself. A professional misconduct complaint will be lodged against Cecil Abraham by the Bar Council, whereby under the Legal Profession Act he could be reprimanded, fined and suspended from practice for up to five years.
Sirul Azhar
Sirul Azhar, the former police commando, who was convicted for the murder of Altantuyaa, revealed during his detention in Australia that he was under orders to kill Altantuyaa and that the real murderers were still free. He also mentioned that Najib's aide-de camp Musa Safri and his superior should have been made to testify during the murder trial. Sirul's claims have been immediately rubbished by Najib and Inspector General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar. The opposition has asked Najib to explain why he was asserting that Sirul's claims were "total rubbish". In January 2016, Sirul Azhar denies Najib Razak involved in the murder case.
Further revelations
A lawyer for Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri said the type of explosives used in the murder of Mongolian national Altantuyaa Shaariibuu is not in the stock of federal police headquarters Bukit Aman. “Azilah's log record from Bukit Aman shows that he was only issued with a Glock pistol and magazines. Hence, there is a question as to how this type of explosive was allegedly used," said lawyer Hazman Ahmad. In addition, both Sirul and Azilah are not trained to handle explosives and bombs such as the C4.
In an investigative news report 101 East by Al Jazeera, an interview of a purported relative of Sirul called 'Frank' claimed that Sirul mentioned to him that Razak Baginda was the person who shot and killed Altantuyaa. The documentary also alleged that the-then Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had an extramarital affair with the victim prior to her death. The Australian journalist Mary Ann Jolley, who did the report, was deported from Malaysia on June 14, 2015 by the Malaysian authorities, alleging she had tarnished Malaysia's image. Following the airing of the documentary on 10 September 2015, the Malaysian Prime Minister's Department and the former Inspector-General of Police, Musa Hassan, both issued statements contesting the report's assertions.
In The Malaysian Insider interview, Abdul Razak Baginda claimed that Altantuyaa Shaariibuu had repeatedly harassed and blackmailed him for an amount of US$5,000 and US$8,000, which prompted him to enlist Deputy Superintendent Musa Safri for help, and hire private investigator P. Balasubramaniam for protection. Altantuyaa was later murdered, allegedly under police custody of Sirul Azhar and Azilah Hadri. Both were convicted for the murder from the physical evidence found in Sirul's car, Sirul's house, and an account that they both were present at the hotel Altantuyaa stayed, and outside of Razak's house. Sirul denied Musa Safri's involvement, and Abdul Razak Baginda was acquitted from the murder charge due to reasonable doubt raised from the record of 144 telephone calls and SMS-es made between him and Musa Safri. Abdul Razak Baginda also denied the murder was related to his submarine deal, and claimed P. Balasubramaniam's statutory declaration, that implicated the Deputy Prime Minister, was based on hearsay.
See also
Malaysian Armed Forces
Human rights in Malaysia
Racism in Malaysia
References
External links
"Brutal Murder of a Mongolian Beauty", The Straits Times, Singapore
"Who was Altantuya Shaariibuu?", Asia Sentinel
Extradition of Sirul Azhar Umar
Murder in Malaysia. Al Jazeera English, September 2015 (video, 26 mins)
"The Girl Who Knew Too Much", Asia Sentinel
2006 murders in Asia
Deaths by person in Malaysia
Political scandals in Malaysia
2006 crimes in Malaysia
2000s in Kuala Lumpur
Crime in Kuala Lumpur
2000s murders in Malaysia
Malaysian police officers convicted of murder
Police officers convicted of murder
Female murder victims
2000s in Malaysia
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John Wilson Bengough (; 7 April 1851 – 2 October 1923) was one of Canada's earliest cartoonists, as well as an editor, publisher, writer, poet, entertainer, and politician. Bengough is best remembered for his political cartoons in Grip, a satirical magazine he published and edited, which he modelled after the British humour magazine Punch. He published some cartoons under the pen name L. Côté.
Born in Toronto in the Province of Canada to Scottish and Irish immigrants, Bengough grew up in nearby Whitby, where after graduating from high school he began a career in newspapers as a typesetter. The political cartoons of the American Thomas Nast inspired Bengough to direct his drawing talents towards cartooning; a lack of outlets for his work drove him to found Grip in 1873. The Pacific Scandal gave Bengough ample material to lampoon, and soon Bengough's image of prime minister John A. Macdonald achieved fame across Canada. After Grip folded in 1894, Bengough published books, contributed cartoons to Canadian and foreign newspapers, and toured giving chalk talks internationally.
Bengough was deeply religious and devoted himself to promoting social reforms. He supported free trade, prohibition of alcohol and tobacco, women's suffrage, and other liberal beliefs, but was opposed to Canadian bilingualism. Bengough had ambitions to run for office, though Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier convinced him against running for Parliament; he served as alderman on the Toronto City Council from 1907 to 1909. The Canadian government listed Bengough as a Person of National Historic Significance in 1938 and he was inducted into the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame in 2005.
Life and career
Early life (1851–73)
Bengough's grandparents John (d. 5 April 1867), a ship's carpenter, and Johanna ( Jackson, d. 18 March 1859) were born in St Andrews in Scotland in the 1790s and immigrated with their children to Canada at an unknown date; they are known to have been in Whitby on Lake Ontario in the Province of Canada by the 1850s. They brought with them at least three children, including Bengough's father John (23 May 1819 in Scotland – 1899) who became a cabinetmaker. John Bengough was politically active: he advocated social reforms such as the Georgist single tax and had several Town Council appointments, though he never held political office. He used the title Captain, which suggests he may have sometime sailed ships out of Port Whitby.
Bengough's father married Margaret Wilson, an Irish immigrant born in Bailieborough in County Cavan, and the couple had six children: five sons and a daughter. John Wilson Bengough was the second, born into the deeply Protestant family on 7 April 1851 in Toronto, where the elder Bengough had run a shop on Victoria Street in the 1840s. It is not known when they moved to Toronto, but it is known that by 1853 the family had moved back to Whitby.
Bengough attended Whitby Grammar School, where he was an average student; he won a prize one year for general proficiency, for which he received a book titled Boyhood of Great Artists. He was an avid sketcher, a talent which caught the notice of his teacher, who presented Bengough with a set of paints one Christmas. Bengough credited this act with setting him on the path to a career as an artist. Whitby residents later reminisced of the young Bengough drawing chalk portraits of his neighbours on fences. He described himself as a "voracious reader", particularly of the Whitby Gazette, a didactic weekly that stressed Christian values.
After graduation, Bengough tried his hand at a number of jobs, including photographer's assistant, and he articled to a lawyer for some time before getting a typesetting job at the Whitby Gazette. The Gazettes editor was George Ham, an extroverted journalist who later worked as public relations chief for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Bengough contributed short local-interest articles. In mid-1870, Ham issued a four-page daily to capitalize on interest in the Franco-Prussian War and commissioned Bengough to provide a serialized novel for it. The popular reception of The Murderer's Scalp (or The Shrieking Ghost of the Bloody Den) encouraged Bengough to devote himself to a journalism career. The serial went unfinished because Ham cancelled the daily when the war died down. The papers and magazines that came into the Gazette offices, in particular Harper's Weekly, introduced Bengough to the growing field of cartooning. Bengough reminisced,
I divided my time between mechanical duties for sordid wages and poetry for the good of humanity, and meanwhile I kept an eye on Thomas Nast the cartoonist.
Bengough considered the politically and socially aware Nast a "beau ideal" whose "moral crusade against abject wrong"—in particular his relentless Boss Tweed cartoons—inspired the young Bengough to "emulate Nast in the field of Canadian politics". Bengough so admired the cartoonist that he sent a cartoon to Harper's of Nast confronting the Tammany Hall political machine, rendered in Nast's style, to which the editor returned a positive response and an acknowledgement from Nast.
At twenty, Bengough moved to Toronto and became a reporter on politician George Brown's newspaper The Globe. The Liberal paper was the most influential in the country; Bengough's family had supported the Liberal Party since before Confederation, and these connections probably played a role in his getting the position at the paper. Editorial cartooning had no presence in Canadian newspapers at the time and was not to have one until Hugh Graham brought the practice to his Montreal Star in 1876; Bengough stated he did not consider the possibility of editorial cartooning at the time. The lack of cartooning opportunities disappointed him, and he enrolled briefly in the Ontario School of Art, which he found pedantic and stifling; he quit after one term.
Grip (1873–94)
Bengough told the following story of how he took up publishing: He had made a caricature of James Beaty, Sr., editor of the conservative Toronto Leader, and Beaty's nephew Sam found it so amusing that he made a lithographic copy for himself at the printer Rolph Bros. Impressed with his first exposure to lithography, and frustrated with the lack of opportunities to have his cartoons published, Bengough asked himself, "Why not start a weekly comic paper with lithographed cartoons?" His brother Thomas remembered a somewhat different story in which Bengough first began distributing copies of his cartoons on the street. Of his printed cartoons, only one of Liberal member Edward Blake has survived.
In 1849–50 John Henry Walker's short-lived weekly Punch in Canada provided the first regular outlet for Canadian political cartooning; others such as The Grumbler (1858–69), Grinchuckle (1869–70), and Diogenes (1868–70) did not last long, either. George-Édouard Desbarats's more conservative, Montreal-based Canadian Illustrated News (1869–83) lasted much longer. Bengough was to found the first major humour magazine in English Canada.
A raven character in the Charles Dickens novel Barnaby Rudge inspired the name of the magazine Grip. Its pages carried political and social commentary along with satirical cartoons, and its debut issue of 24 May 1873 declared: "Grip will be entirely independent and impartial, always, and on all subjects." Bengough set the editorial policy and was the lead cartoonist.
Grips initial financing came from Toronto publisher Andrew Scott Irving. Later in the year Bengough set up an office on 2 Toronto Street and with his four brothers formed the Bengough Brothers company. Bengough continued to work at the Globe until Grip established itself. He used pseudonyms until he left the newspaper later in the year. The editor's name appeared as a "Charles P. Hall" until Thomas Phillips Thompson took over as editor on 26 July under the pseudonym "Jimuel Briggs"; he lasted until the 6 September issue, when he printed a pro-alcohol article despite Bengough's prohibitionist views. The Toronto Globes R. H. Larminie then took on co-editing duties as "Demos Mudge" with Bengough as "Barnaby Rudge". Regular contributors other than Bengough included R. W. Phipps, who produced the greatest amount of Grips poetry; Tom Boylan, who Bengough considered Grips best humourist; Edward Edwards, who wrote sombre topical articles in contrast to the humour of the rest of the magazine; and William Alexander Foster who wrote scathing editorials about Oliver Mowat's Ontario Liberal Party, which contrasted with Bengough's position and lent credibility to the magazine's assertions of non-partisanship. Writers such as Peter McArthur got their start with Grip.
Grips early issues attracted little notice. The Hamilton Spectator declared it "dull ... When Grip dies, which will be soon, Toronto will be much more cheerful. ... Grip is what Punch would be with all the spirit left out". Events arising from the Canadian federal election of 1872 shortly gave Bengough sufficient popular material to lampoon: accusations of bribery and other improprieties involving prime minister John A. Macdonald and business magnate Hugh Allan inflated into the Pacific Scandal, the most closely followed scandal in the young nation's history. Macdonald's features lent themselves to caricature and gave Bengough the chance to proselytize. Circulation rose to about 2,000 copies per issue at the time; Bengough's brother Thomas reported that each new issue was eagerly awaited at the House of Commons. A 23 August 1873 cartoon entitled "The Beauties of a Royal Commission: When shall we three meet again?" drew praise from newspapers across Canada, as well as from Liberal MP Lucius Seth Huntington in a speech to the House of Commons.
Despite their Liberal leanings, in 1878 Bengough and Grip took the side of the proposed Conservative National Policy of high tariffs on trade with the US, against the governing Liberal stance of free trade. The issue contributed to the loss of Alexander Mackenzie's incumbent Liberals to Macdonald's Conservatives in the election of 1878, despite Grips prediction that Mackenzie would win again. The magazine supported no party officially in its early years, but made its support for the Liberals explicit in the elections of 1887 and of 1891, after Wilfrid Laurier had become party leader. In the mid-1880s the Grip Printing and Publishing Company took on printing duties for the Ontario Liberal government. This support, however, resulted in no federal election wins.
Grip had considerable influence on the public perception of politicians. That it was slanted in favour of Liberals and against Conservatives drove Conservative supporters to launch rival publications. The first was Jester, begun in 1878, which featured cartoons by Henri Julien that painted Macdonald in a benevolent light. Jester failed to find an audience to match Bengough's and folded the following year. In 1886, Bengough reported a weekly circulation for Grip of 50,000.
In March 1874, in the music hall of the Toronto Mechanics' Institute, Bengough began giving comic chalk talk performances, which he later toured across the country. He impressed audiences with his ability to capture the likeness of members of the audience in a single penstroke. He continued his chalk talks throughout his life and travelled with them to the US, Australia, New Zealand, and Britain. He published an autobiography titled Chalk Talks in 1922, the year before his death.
Early Canadian feminist writer Sarah Anne Curzon made regular contributions to Grip. At Bengough's request in 1882, she wrote the closet drama The Sweet Girl Graduate for the book The Grip Sack. The drama tells of a woman who disguises herself as a man to attend university at a time when women were barred in Canada from post-secondary education.
In 1883, Frank Wilson took over management of the printing of Grip. Thomas Phillips Thompson became associate editor. He shared with Bengough a radical political outlook and a taste for satire, though was less open to new ideas than Bengough, who was quick to attach himself to new causes. Thompson was anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, and anti-militarist. In 1892, the managers of Grip passed the editorship from Bengough to Thompson and Bengough's cartoons stopped appearing after the 6 August 1892 issue. Years later, Bengough's brother Thomas blamed the board of directors at Grip, Inc., for the falling out over "general mismanagement", which may have involved losses incurred in relation to a government contract.
Grips tone became increasingly strident: anti-French, anti-Catholic, pro-socialist. This, and an increased use of racial caricature, seem to have alienated readers. Under the new editorship readership fell until Grip ceased publication in July 1893. Grip, Inc., sold off assets, such as its printing machines, to repay debts.
Bengough revived Grip in 1894 under a new company called Phoenix Publishing with a partner named Bell who had newspaper publishing experience in Belleville. They softened Grips tone, but the content appeared rushed and it lasted only from 4 January to 29 December 1894. Macdonald had died in 1891, and Bengough blamed the publication's ill fortunes on the loss of such a target.
Later life (1895–1923)
After Grip ceased publication, Bengough worked for the next quarter-century as a cartoonist for a variety of newspapers, including The Globe, The Toronto Evening Telegram, the Montreal Star, Canadian Geographic, the American The Public and The Single Tax Review, The Morning Chronicle and Daily Express in England, and the Sydney Herald in Australia.
Bengough continued to devote himself to political causes. He supported the Liberals' successful campaign in the federal election of 1896 with cartoons in the Toronto Globe and with a song he composed titled "Ontario, Ontario". He belonged to numerous political and social clubs. He was a founding member of the Royal Society of Canada in 1880, to which the Governor General appointed him an Associate. He was professor of elocution at Knox College from 1899 to 1901. He served as director of the Toronto Exhibition, auditor for the Canadian Peace and Arbitration Society, member for three years of the board of directors of the Victoria Industrial School, and president of the Toronto Single Tax Association, and took part in the People's Forum social activist group.
In 1907, Bengough campaigned to join the Toronto City Council as an alderman for Ward 3. Major newspapers such as the Toronto Star promoted him, and the Toronto Daily World ran a photograph of him on its front page when he won. He won again in 1908 and 1909. He counted future Toronto mayor Horatio Clarence Hocken amongst his reformist allies on the Council and promoted issues such as public ownership of hydroelectric power, but found little support for his ideas. His successes included legislation restricting the issuing of liquor licenses, which found support when he made it an election issue in his 1909 campaign.
In March 1909, Bengough took a leave of absence from the Toronto City Council to tour Australia and New Zealand and gave up his post when he returned. When the First World War broke out, he devoted his energies to promoting patriotism and the war effort, and supported conscription, a cause that was popular in English Canada but unpopular in Quebec and which ran counter to the Liberal Party position. Bengough nevertheless continued to support the party and used his cartoons to promote party leader William Lyon Mackenzie King in the federal election of 1921.
Following a chalk-talk performance in Moncton, New Brunswick in 1922, Bengough suffered an attack of angina pectoris, attributed to overwork during a previous tour of Western Canada. He died of it on 2 October 1923 at his drawing board at his home on 58 St Mary Street in Toronto while working on a cartoon in support of an anti-smoking campaign. At his memorial service on 22 November, the editor of the Hamilton Herald, Albert E. S. Smythe, declared him the "Canadian Dickens" and one of Walt Whitman's "great companions".
Personal life
Bengough was of average height and had grey eyes and dark hair. He married twice; neither marriage produced children. He married Helena "Nellie" Siddall in Toronto on 30 June 1880; she died in 1902. He remarried to a friend from his school days, the widow Annie Robertson Matteson, in Chicago on 18 June 1908. Neither appears to have written about Bengough.
Style
Bengough drew mainly political cartoons. His cartoons and writing tend towards the preachy and didactic; he believed that humour should serve the interests of the state rather than merely to amuse. Bengough tended in his writing towards satirical humour and puns, which George Ramsay Cook called "sometimes sophomoric". He read Dickens, Shakespeare, and Carlyle with particular devotion.
Bengough had little exposure to formal art education aside from one term at the Ontario School of Art. His sketchy cartoons derived from a mid-19th century engraving style; while often drawn well, they were crowded in composition and sometimes borrowed from other sources. Bengough could draw in contrasting styles, as evidenced by cartoons he did under the pseudonym of L. Côté. As typical of political cartoonists of the time, Bengough aimed less at laughter than at social satire and depended more on readers' understanding of densely packed allusions.
Bengough's cartoons are best remembered for fixing his renditions of Macdonald in the public imagination. Bengough's bulbous-nosed politician often appeared baggy-eyed with bottles of alcohol in his hands as a sombre symbol of corruption, in contrast to the work of John Henry Walker, another prolific caricaturist of Macdonald who depicted the prime minister's drunkenness to make light of him. Bengough continued to hone his draftsmanship after Macdonald's death, but the wit and inspiration of his Macdonald cartoons continue to draw the most attention.
Bengough's chalk talks have left less of a mark on the public memory, though audience members have passed down Bengough's renditions of them as heirlooms. Bengough delivered humorous anecdotes and made impressions as he caricatured audience members and well-known locals in a flamboyant manner, adding the identifying details only at the end.
Politics
Bengough's reputation was as a supporter of the Liberal Party of Canada and its pro-democratic platform. His family had been supporters since before Confederation; his father had supported Oliver Mowat and both his brother Thomas and sister Mary worked in Mowat's provincial government. Members of his family were to play roles in the Liberal Party into the twentieth century; Bengough and his brother Thomas had ties close enough with Wilfrid Laurier to ask for favours, and both were also close to William Lyon Mackenzie King. Bengough had ambitions to run for Parliament, but Liberal leader Laurier convinced him against it; Laurier also turned down a request of Bengough's for a Senate appointment as reward for a lifetime of Liberal support.
Grips political stance was one of disinterest, but a large portion of Bengough's income came from Liberal publications, and Macdonald and his Conservatives were favourite targets of Bengough's cartoon attacks, notably during the Pacific Scandal. His association with the Liberals was so strong that Charles Tupper quipped in Parliament that Grip should change its name to Grit—a popular nickname for Liberal Party members. His best-remembered cartoons were those aimed at Macdonald and the Conservatives, but his criticisms targeted Liberals as well—Edward Blake had his subscription cancelled when he was the victim of a particular cartoon. Macdonald's Conservative Daily Mail, launched in 1872, provided a rivalry with the Liberal Globe that provided fuel for Bengough's satire, as did infighting in the Liberal Party over The Globe, which allowed Bengough to distance himself to a degree from criticism of Liberal partisanship.
Bengough was a proponent of such issues as proportional representation, prohibition of alcohol and of tobacco, the single tax espoused by Henry George, and worldwide free trade. He held progressive views on women's suffrage; in 1889 supported the Dominion Women's Enfranchisement Association efforts to have a bill proposed by Liberal MP John Waters that would have granted suffrage to Canadian women. He expressed anti-imperialist ideals until the mid-1890s, after which he supported imperialism. He supported Canada's involvement in the Second Boer War and First World War. Bengough contributed to the ongoing debates concerning the development of a Canadian identity during the nation's early years. He showed a marked ethnic nationalism in that he promoted English as the nation's sole official language, and the separation of church and state, a view that was directed particularly at the Catholic, French-speaking Québécois. He depicted the Québécois as backward and Quebec politicians as always demanding money. Bengough declared he looked forward to:
Bengough had liberal views on race relations, and painted a picture of Canada as being more open to integration than the US during the Reconstruction Era; according to David R. Spencer, his views on race were not likely widely shared in Canada at the time. While Bengough sympathized with the plight of Canada's native peoples, he condemned the 1885 North-West Rebellion and called for the execution of Métis rebel leader Louis Riel, and celebrated Major-General Frederick Dobson Middleton's victory at the Battle of Batoche in Saskatchewan with a poem. His racial caricatures could, according to Carman Cumming, lead a modern reader to see him as "a racist chauvinist bigot": they distort facial features and behaviour in ways typical of cartoons of the era and employ such derogatory terms as "coon" for blacks and "sheeny" for Jews. Bengough called for restrictions on Chinese and Irish immigration and his work shows a bias against immigrants who did not conform to Anglo-Saxon Protestant ideals.
Bengough intended his didactic cartoons to impart moral instruction. He expressed a deep devotion to religion. He had a Presbyterian upbringing, though as an adult he subscribed to no denomination. He promoted Christian ideals as solutions to social issues and thus, for example, opposed streetcars running on Sundays. He proclaimed a Protestant work ethic widely expressed by Canadian artists and intellectuals of the late 19th century. In his writing he frequently made statements about the role of Man in God's world, and insisted that politics should conform to the will of God. The editor of Canadian Methodist Magazine William Henry Withrow declared Bengough "an Artist of Righteousness" who was "always on the right side of every moral question".
Legacy
As Nast had in the US, Bengough succeeded in establishing editorial cartooning as a force in journalism in the late 19th century. The church minister and Queen's College principal George Monro Grant called Bengough "the most honest interpreter of current events to have" and declared he had "no malice in him" but had "a merry heart, and that doeth good like medicine". The reformist English newspaper editor William Thomas Stead considered Bengough "one of the ablest cartoonists in the world".
Outlets for political cartoons were mostly limited to illustrated magazines until they found a home in daily newspapers in the 20th century. Bengough's busy, moralizing style began to fall out of favour by the 1890s in contrast to the cleaner style practised by such cartoonists as Henri Julien and Sam Hunter. His caricatures nevertheless left an impression on the public consciousness in Canada for generations to follow.
Bengough's caricatures continue to illustrate Canadian texts—examples in which they are prominent include Creighton's biography John A. Macdonald (1952–55), Armstrong and Nelles' The Revenge of the Methodist Bicycle Company: Sunday Streetcars and Municipal Reform in Toronto, 1888–1897 (1977), and Waite's Arduous Destiny: Canada 1874–1896 (1971). Historians use the cartoons to demonstrate issues and attitudes of Bengough's era, as well as for their artistic qualities, removed from their satirical contexts. Historian Peter Busby Waite considered Grip "one of the most interesting sources for the social history of Ontario in the latter nineteenth century".
Bengough's artistic legacy rests chiefly on his caricatures of Macdonald. To Peter Desbarats and Terry Mosher, Bengough's bulbous-nosed caricatures of Macdonald as "ungainly, boozy, and corrupt ... engraved itself on the public mind, particularly in the days before newspapers published photographs of politicians". Macdonald nevertheless deflated much of the power his caricaturists might have had as he often made light of his own alcoholism. Bengough met the prime minister in person only once.
Though his cartoons have continued to thrive, Bengough's life and career as a writer has drawn far less attention. Bengough biographer Stanley Paul Kutcher considered his poetry "undistiguished". Historian George Ramsay Cook commended Bengough's approach to have "nurtured the growth of social criticism in late Victorian Canada without much of that humourless self-righteousness that so often characterizes reformers". Historian Carman Cumming's Sketches of a Young Country provides an in-depth analysis of Grips politics.
The town of Bengough, Saskatchewan, incorporated 15 March 1912, was named after the cartoonist. On 19 May 1938, the Canadian government listed Bengough as a Person of National Historic Significance and dedicated a plaque to him at 66 Charles Street East in Toronto. Bengough was inducted into the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame in 2005. The McMaster University Library in Hamilton, Ontario, holds the J. W. Bengough papers in its Division of Archives and Research Collection.
Published works
1875 – The Grip Cartoons. Rogers and Larminie
1876 – The Decline and Fall of Keewatin. Grip Publishing Co.
1882 – Bengough's Popular Readings: Original and Select. Bengough, Moore and Bengough
1882 – The Grip-Sack: A Receptacle of Light Literature, Fun and Fancy. The Grip Printing and Publishing Co.
1882 – Grip's Comic Almanac for 1882. Bengough, Moore and Bengough
1886 – A Caricature History of Canadian Politics (two volumes). The Grip Publishing and Printing Co.
1895 – Motley: Verse Grave and Gay. William Briggs
1896 – The Up-to-date Primer. Funk & Wagnalls
1897 – The Prohibition Aesop. Royal Templar Book and Publishing House
1898 – The Gin Mill Primer. William Briggs
1902 – In Many Keys. William Briggs
1908 – On True Political Economy (The Whole Hog Book). American Free Trade League
1922 – Chalk Talks. The Musson Book Co.
No copies remain of the comic opera Hecuba; or Hamlet's Father's Deceased Wife's Sister, a comic opera with score by G. Barton Brown. Publisher F. F. Siddall registered it for copyright in 1885. The opera may have been an earlier version of Puffe and Co., or Hamlet, Prince of Dry Goods, for which an undated and possibly unpublished script exists, and for which Clarence Lucas had written a score that Bengough appears to have rejected.
Notes
References
Works cited
Further reading
External links
A Caricature History of Canadian Politics (1886) at HathiTrust
On True Political Economy (The Whole Hog Book) (1908) at Wealth and Want
1851 births
1923 deaths
Artists from Toronto
Canadian cartoonists
Canadian editorial cartoonists
Canadian people of Irish descent
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Canadian publishers (people)
People from Whitby, Ontario
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Toronto city councillors
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The Insurgency in Punjab, from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, was an armed campaign by the Sikh militant nationalist Khalistan movement. In the 1980s, the movement had evolved into a secessionist movement after the perceived indifference of the Indian state in regards to mutual negotiations. The Green Revolution brought several social and economic changes which, along with factionalism of the politics, in the Punjab state increased tension between rural Sikhs in Punjab with the union Government of India. Pakistani strategists then began supporting the militant dimension of the Khalistan movement.
In the 1972 Punjab state elections, Congress won and Akali Dal was defeated. In 1973, Akali Dal put forward the Anandpur Sahib Resolution to demand more autonomic powers to the state of Punjab. The Congress government considered the resolution a secessionist document and rejected it. Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale then joined the Akali Dal to launch the Dharam Yudh Morcha in 1982, to implement Anandpur Sahib resolution. Bhindranwale had risen to prominence in the Sikh political circle with his policy of getting the Anandpur Resolution passed, failing which he wanted to declare a semi-autonomous, federal region of Punjab as a homeland for Sikhs.
Bhindranwale was credited by the government with launching Sikh militancy in Punjab. Under Bhindranwale, the number of people initiating into the Khalsa increased. He also increased the awareness amongst the populace about the ongoing assault on Sikh values by politicians, alleging their intentions to influence Sikhism and eradicate its individuality by conflating it with Pan-Indian Hinduism. Bhindranwale and his followers started carrying firearms at all times for self defense. In 1983, he along with his militant followers occupied and fortified Akal Takht. While critics claimed that he entered the akal takht to escape arrest in 1983, there was no arrest warrant issued in his name, and he was regularly found giving interviews to the press in and outside the Akal Takht. He made the Sikh religious building his headquarters and led a campaign for autonomy in Punjab with the strong backing of Major General Shabeg Singh. They then took refuge in the Akal Takht as the extrajudicial violence against Sikhs increased in the months before Operation Bluestar.
On the 1st of June 1984, Operation Blue Star was launched to remove him and the armed militants from the Golden Temple complex. On 6 June, on Guru Arjan Dev Martyrdom Day, Bhindranwale was killed by the Indian military in the operation. The operation carried out in the Gurudwara caused outrage among the Sikhs and increased the support for Khalistan Movement. Four months after the operation, on 31 October 1984, Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi was assassinated in vengeance by her two bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. Public outcry over Gandhi's death led to the slaughter of Sikhs in the ensuing 1984 Sikh Massacre. These events played a major role in the violence by Sikh militant groups supported by Pakistan and consumed Punjab until the early 1990s when the Khalistan movement eventually slowed down.
In the mid-1990s, the insurgency petered out, and the Khalistan movement failed to reach its objective due to multiple reasons including a heavy police crackdown on civilians and militants, factional infighting, and loss of public support, with the militancy brought under the control of law enforcement agencies by 1993.
Background
In the 1950s the Punjabi Suba movement for linguistic reorganisation of the state of Punjab and status for the Punjabi language took place, which the government finally agreed to in 1966 after protests and recommendation of the States Reorganisation commission. The state of East Punjab was later split into the states of Himachal Pradesh, the new state Haryana and current day Punjab.
The process of Sikh alienation from the national mainstream was set in motion shortly after Independence due to the communalism of national and regional parties and organization including the RSS, Jan Sangh, and the Arya Samaj, exacerbated by Congress mishandling and local politicians and factions. According to Indian general Afsir Karim, many observers believed that separatist sentiments began in 1951 when Punjabi Hindus disowned the Punjabi language under the influence of radical elements, and "doubts on the concepts of a Punjabi Suba" created mutual suspicion, bitterness, and further misunderstanding between the two communities. The 1966 reorganization left the Sikhs highly dissatisfied, with the unresolved status of Chandigarh and the distribution of river waters intensifying bitter feelings.
While the Green Revolution in Punjab had several positive impacts, the introduction of the mechanised agricultural techniques led to uneven distribution of wealth. The industrial development was not done at the same pace of agricultural development, the Indian government had been reluctant to set up heavy industries in Punjab due to its status as a high-risk border state with Pakistan. The rapid increase in the higher education opportunities without adequate rise in the jobs resulted in the increase in the unemployment of educated youth. The resulting unemployed rural Sikh youth were drawn to the militant groups, and formed the backbone of the militancy.
After being routed in 1972 Punjab election, the Akali Dal put forward the Anandpur Sahib Resolution in 1973 to address these and other grievances, and demand more autonomy to Punjab. The resolution included both religious and political issues. It asked for recognising Sikhism as a religion It also demanded that power be generally devoluted from the Central to state governments. The Anandpur Resolution was rejected by the government as a secessionist document. Thousands of people joined the movement, feeling that it represented a real solution to demands such as a larger share of water for irrigation and the return of Chandigarh to Punjab.
The 1978 Sikh-Nirankari clashes had been within the Sikh community, but the pro-Sant Nirankari stance of some Hindus in Punjab and Delhi had led to further division, including Jan Sangh members like Harbans Lal Khanna joining the fray, who, in a protest against holy city status for Amritsar, raising inflammatory slogans like "Kachha, kara, kirpan, bhejo inko Pakistan" ("those who wear the 5 Ks (Sikhs), send them to Pakistan"), led to aggressive counter demonstrations.
Dharam Yudh Morcha
Bhindranwale had risen to prominence in the Sikh political circle with his policy of getting the Anandpur Sahib Resolution passed. Indira Gandhi, the leader of the Akali Dal's rival Congress, considered the Anandpur Sahib Resolution as a secessionist document although it was purely humanitarian and according to earlier promises by the government but rejected. The Government was of the view that passing of the resolution would have allowed Punjab to be autonomous.
As high-handed police methods normally used on common criminals were used on protesters during the Dharam Yudh Morcha, creating state repression affecting a very large segment of Punjab's population, retaliatory violence came from a section of the Sikh population, widening the scope of the conflict by the use of violence of the state on its own people, creating fresh motives for Sikh youth to turn to insurgency. The concept of Khalistan was still vague even while the complex was fortified under the influence of former Sikh army officials alienated by government actions who now advised Bhindranwale, Major General Shabeg Singh and retired Major General and Brigadier Mohinder Singh, and at that point the concept was still not directly connected with the movement he headed. In other parts of Punjab, a "state of chaos and repressive police methods" combined to create "a mood of overwhelming anger and resentment in the Sikh masses against the authorities", making Bhindranwale even more popular, and demands of independence gain currency, even amongst moderates and Sikh intellectuals. Extrajudicial killings by the police of orthodox Sikh youth in rural areas in Punjab during the summer and winter of 1982 and early 1983, provoking reprisals. Over 190 Sikhs had been killed in the first 19 months of the protest movement.
Operation Blue Star
Operation Blue Star was an Indian military operation carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984, ordered by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to remove religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed followers from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar, Punjab. In July 1983, the Sikh political party Akali Dal's President Harcharan Singh Longowal had invited Bhindranwale to take up residence in Golden Temple Complex. Bhindranwale later on made the sacred temple complex an armoury and headquarters. In the violent events leading up to the Operation Blue Star, the militants had killed 165 Nirankaris, Hindus and Nirankaris, even 39 Sikhs opposed to Bhindranwale were killed. The total number of deaths was 410 in violent incidents and riots while 1,180 people were injured.
Counterintelligence reports of the Indian agencies had reported that three prominent figures in the operation, Shabeg Singh, Balbir Singh and Amrik Singh had made at least six trips each to Pakistan between the years 1981 and 1983. Intelligence Bureau reported that weapons training was being provided at gurdwaras in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. Soviet intelligence agency KGB reportedly tipped off the Indian agency RAW about the CIA and ISI working together on a Plan for Punjab with a code name "Gibraltar". RAW from its interrogation of a Pakistani Army officer received information that over a thousand trained Special Service Group commandos of the Pakistan Army had been dispatched by Pakistan into the Indian Punjab to assist Bhindranwale in his fight against the government. A large number of Pakistani agents also took the smuggling routes in the Kashmir and Kutch n for three days ending on 8 June. A clean-up operation codenamed as Operation Woodrose was also initiated throughout Punjab.
The army had underestimated the firepower possessed by the militants. Militants had Chinese made rocket-propelled grenade launchers with armour piercing capabilities. Tanks and heavy artillery were used to attack the militants using anti-tank and machine-gun fire from the heavily fortified Akal Takht. After a 24-hour firefight, the army finally wrested control of the temple complex. Casualty figures for the Army were 83 dead and 249 injured. According to the official estimate presented by the Indian government, 1592 were apprehended and there were 493 combined militant and civilian casualties. High civilian casualties were attributed by the state to militants using pilgrims trapped inside the temple as human shields. According to Indian army generals, it was "doubtful" that Bhindranwale had any assurance of help or promise of asylum from Pakistan, as he made no attempt to escape with any associates, in additions to traditions of martyrdom.
Assassination of Indira Gandhi and anti-Sikh riots
The Operation Bluestar was criticized by many Sikhs bodies, who interpreted the military action as an assault on Sikh religion. Four months after the operation, on 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated in vengeance by her two Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh.
Public outcry and instigation of the public by several high-profile politicians and actors over Gandhi's death led to the killings of more than 3,000 Sikhs in the ensuing 1984 anti-Sikh riots. In the aftermath of the riots, the government reported that 20,000 had fled the city; the People's Union for Civil Liberties reported "at least" 1,000 displaced persons. The most-affected regions were the Sikh neighbourhoods of Delhi. Human rights organisations and newspapers across India believed that the massacre was organised. The collusion of political officials in the violence and judicial failure to penalise the perpetrators alienated Sikhs and increased support for the Khalistan movement.
Militancy
Since the November 1984 pogrom, the Sikhs considered themselves a besieged community. The majority of Sikhs in Punjab would come to support the insurgents as harsh police measures, harassment of innocent Sikh families, and fake encounters from the state had progressively increased support, and provided fresh motives for angry youth to join the insurgents, who were extolled by the community as martyrs as they were killed by police. Police activity discriminatory towards Sikhs increased alienation greatly, triggering indiscriminate militant incidents. However, the insurgent groups were also highly vulnerable to infiltration by security forces, providing possible motive as to frequent assassination of those suspected of being informants.
A section of Sikhs turned to militancy in Punjab; some Sikh militant groups aimed to create an independent state called Khalistan through acts of violence directed at members of the Indian government, army or forces. Others demanded an autonomous state within India, based on the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. Rajiv Gandhi congratulated a "large number" of Sikhs in a speech in 1985 for condemning the actions of the militants "for the first time."
An anthropological study by Puri et al. had posited fun, excitement and expressions of masculinity, as explanations for the young men to join militants and other religious nationalist groups. Puri et al. stated that undereducated and illiterate young men, and with few job prospects had joined pro-Khalistan militant groups with "fun" as one of the primary reasons, asserting that the pursuit of Khalistan was the motivation for only 5% of "militants". Among the arrested terrorists were Harjinder Singh Jinda, who was a convicted bank robber and had escaped from prison, Devinder Singh Bai, a suspect in murder case and was Bhindranwale's close associate, and two drug smugglers, Upkar Singh and Bakshish Singh. However, retired Indian Army general Afsir Karim had described "myths" that had become part of the conventional wisdom of the establishment, including that of "Sikhs have no cause to be dissatisfied or disgruntled" or "have no grievances", or that "terrorism and violence is the work of a handful of misguided youth and criminals and can be curbed by strong measures taken by the state law and order apparatus", stating that the terrorism was a preliminary stage of insurgency in Punjab, that it was well organized, and that the militants were highly motivated and that crime was not their motive. Army leaders during the earlier operation had noted that "it was now evident that this was no rabble army, but a determined insurgent army fired up with religious fervour." The movement would only begin to attract lumpen elements in the late 1980s, joining for the allure of money rather than the long cherished cause of a separate homeland for the Sikhs, as well as by entryists like Naxalites who "took advantage of the situation for their own ends."
According to Human Rights Watch in the beginning, on the 1980s, terrorists committed indiscriminate bombings in crowded places, as Indian security forces killed, disappeared, and tortured thousands of innocent Sikhs extrajudicially during its counterinsurgency campaign. On the same day, in another location, a group of militants killed two officials during an attack on a train. Trains were attacked and people were shot after being pulled from buses.
The Congress(I)-led Central Government dismissed its own Punjab's government, declaring a state of emergency, and imposed the President's Rule in the state.
The Operation Blue Star and Anti-Sikh riots across Northern India were crucial events in the evolution of the Khalistan movement. The nationalist groups grew in numbers and strength. The financial funding from the Sikh diaspora sharply increased and the Sikhs in the US, UK and Canada donated thousands of dollars every week for the insurgency. Manbir Singh Chaheru the chief of the Sikh militant group Khalistan Commando Force admitted that he had received more than $60,000 from Sikh organisations operating in Canada and Britain. One of the militant stated, "All we have to do is commit a violent act and the money for our cause increased drastically." Indira Gandhi's son and political successor, Rajiv Gandhi, tried unsuccessfully to bring peace to Punjab.
The opportunity that the government had after 1984 was lost and by March 1986, the Golden Temple was back in control of Sikh institution Damdami Taksal. By 1985, the situation in Punjab had become highly volatile. In December 1986, a bus was attacked by Sikh militants in which 24 Hindus were shot dead and 7 were injured and shot near Khuda in the Hoshiarpur district of Punjab."Counter Terrorism in the Indian Punjab: Assessing the Cat System". SATP</ref>
Pakistan involvement
According to Indian general Afsir Karim, there was "nothing to suggest that the initial break between Sikhs and the national mainstream was engineered by outside agencies." The first impetus occurred shortly after Independence in 1951 when Punjabi Hindus, under the influence of local Hindu radical groups, abandoned Punjabi to call Hindi their mother tongue in falsified censuses to prevent the formation of the Punjabi Suba, which brought out other differences between the two communities in the open. Despite this, it required an event of the magnitude of Operation Blue Star to give rise to militancy in an organized form. The pre-operation period generated enough heat to draw Pakistan interest, but it was Operation Blue Star which gave the final push to angry Sikh youth to cross the border and accept Pakistani assistance and support. Even then their anger was "not particularly against the Hindu population but against the humiliation of Blue Star compounded by the anti-Sikh riots of 1984."
In 1964, Pakistani state-owned radio station began airing separatist propaganda targeted for Sikhs in Punjab, which continued during the Indo-Pak war of 1965. Pakistan had been promoting the Sikh secessionist movement since the 1970s. The Pakistani prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had politically supported the idea of Khalistan wherever possible. Under Zia ul Haq, this support became even more prominent. The motive for supporting Khalistan was the revenge for India's role in splitting of Pakistan in 1971 and to discredit India's global status by splitting a Sikh state to vindicate Jinnah's Two-nation theory. Zia had seen this as an opportunity to weaken and distract India in another war of insurgency following the Pakistani military doctrine to "Bleed India with a Thousand Cuts". Former Director General of ISI Hamid Gul had once stated that "Keeping Punjab destabilized is equivalent to the Pakistan Army having an extra division at no cost to the taxpayers."
Since the early 1980s, for the fulfillment of these motives, the spy agency Inter-Service-Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan became involved with the Khalistan movement. ISI created a special Punjab cell in its headquarter to support the militant Sikh followers of Bhindranwale and supply them with arms and ammunitions. Terrorist training camps were set up in Pakistan at Lahore and Karachi to train them. ISI deployed its Field Intelligence Units (FIU) on the Indo-Pak Border. Organisations like Bhindranwale Tiger Force, the Khalistan Commando Force, the Khalistan Liberation Force and the Babbar Khalsa were provided support.
A three-phase plan was followed by the Punjab cell of ISI.
Phase 1 had the objective to initiate alienation of the Sikh people from rest of the people in India.
Phase 2 worked to subvert government organisation and organize mass agitations opposing the government.
Phase 3 marked the beginning of a reign of terror in Punjab where the civilians became victims of violence by the militants and counter-violence by the government, due to which a vicious cycle of terrorism would be induced and utter chaos would ensue.
The ISI also attempted to make appeals to the five-member Panthic Committee, elected from among the religious leaders of the Panth at the Panj Takhts as the upholders of the Sikh religion, as well as the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee due to its substantial financial resources, and as both Sikh committees had major political influence over Punjab and New Delhi.
Sikhs in Pakistan were a small minority and the Panthic Committee in Pakistan assisted the propaganda campaign of ISI in its propaganda and psychological warfare. The Sikh community in the country and abroad were its target. Panthic Committee delivered religious speeches and revealing incidents of torture to the Sikhs. Sikhs were instigated to take up arms against the Indian Government "in the name of a hypothetical autonomous Sikh nation".
ISI used Pakistani Sikhs as partners for its operation in the Indian Punjab. The terrorist training program was spread over and the Sikh gurdwaras on both sides of International border were used as place for residence and armoury for storing weapons and ammunitions.
The direct impact of these activities was felt during the Operation Blue Star where the Sikh insurgents fighting against the army were found to be well trained in warfare and had enough supply of ammunitions. After the Operation Blue Star several modern weapons found inside the temple complex with the Pakistan or Chinese markings on them.
Training and infrastructure
Pakistan had been involved in training, guiding, and arming Sikh militants. Interrogation reports of Sikh militants arrested in India gave details of the training of Sikh youth in Pakistan including arms training in the use of rifles, sniper rifle, light machine gun, grenade, automatic weapons, chemical weapons, demolition of buildings and bridges, sabotage and causing explosions using gunpowder by the Pak-based Sikh militant leaders and Pakistani army officers. A dozen terrorist training camps had been set up in Pakistan along the International border. These camps housed 1500 to 2000 Sikh militants who were imparted guerrilla warfare training. Reports also suggested plans of ISI to cause explosions in big cities like Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Delhi and targeting politicians. According to KPS Gill, terrorists had been mainly using crude bombs but since 1990s more modern explosives supplied by Pakistan had become widespread in usage among them. The number of casualties also increased with more explosives usage by the terrorists.
Weapons
By providing modern sophisticated weapons to the Sikh extremists, the Pakistani ISI was efficacious in producing an environment which conducted guerrilla warfare. AK-47 provided by ISI was primarily used by the militants as an ideal weapon in their guerrilla warfare, based on its superior performance in comparison to other weapons. While the Indian policemen fighting the militants had .303 Lee–Enfield rifles that were popular in the World war II and only a few of them had 7.62 1A self loading rifles. These weapons were outmatched by automatic AK-47s.
A militant from Babbar Khalsa who had been arrested in the early 1990s had informed Indian authorities about Pakistani ISI plans to use aeroplanes for Kamikaze attacks on Indian installations. The Sikhs however refused to participate in such operations on religious grounds as Sikhism prohibits suicide assassinations. In a hijacking in 1984 a German manufactured pistol was used and during the investigations, Germany's Federal Intelligence Service then confirmed that the weapon was part of a weapon consignment for Pakistani government. The American government had then issued warnings over the incident after which the series of hijackings of Indian aeroplanes had stopped.
End of violence
Between 1987 and 1991, Punjab was placed under an ineffective President's rule and was governed from Delhi. Elections were eventually held in 1992 but the voter turnout was poor. A new Congress(I) government was formed and it gave the Chief of the Punjab Police (India) K.P.S. Gill a free hand.
Under his Command, police had launched multiple intelligence-based operations like Operation Black Thunder to neutralise Sikh militants. Police was also successful in killing multiple High-value terrorists thus suppressing the violence and putting an end to mass killings.
By 1993, the Punjab insurgency had petered out, with a last major incident being the Assassination of Chief Minister Beant Singh occurring in 1995.
Timeline
See also
1984 Anti-Sikh riots
Operation Blue Star
Khalistan
1991 Punjab killings
1987 Punjab killings
References
Bibliography
Cry, the beloved Punjab: a harvest of tragedy and terrorism, by Darshan Singh Maini. Published by Siddharth Publications, 1987.
Genesis of terrorism: an analytical study of Punjab terrorists, by Satyapal Dang. Published by Patriot, 1988.
Combating Terrorism in Punjab: Indian Democracy in Crisis, by Manoj Joshi. Published by Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, 1993.
Politics of terrorism in India: the case of Punjab, by Sharda Jain. Published by Deep & Deep Publications, 1995. .
Terrorism: Punjab's recurring nightmare, by Gurpreet Singh, Gourav Jaswal. Published by Sehgal Book Distributors, 1996.
Terrorism in Punjab: understanding grassroots reality, by Harish K. Puri, Paramjit S. Judge, Jagrup Singh Sekhon. Published by Har-Anand Publications, 1999.
Terrorism in Punjab, by Satyapal Dang, V. D. Chopra, Ravi M. Bakaya. Published by Gyan Books, 2000. .
Rise and Fall of Punjab Terrorism, 1978–1993, by Kalyan Rudra. Published by Bright Law House, 2005. .
The Long Walk Home, by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar. Harper Collins, 2009.
Global secutiy net 2010, Knights of Falsehood by KPS Gill, 1997
External links
Times of India article on riots
Amnesty International on Punjab lack of Justice and Impunity
20th-century conflicts
20th century in India
Rebellions in India
History of the Republic of India
History of Sikhism
History of Punjab, India (1947–present)
Khalistan movement
1984 in India
1980s conflicts
1990s conflicts
Sikh terrorism
Sikh politics
Sikh terrorism in India
Operations involving special forces
Indira Gandhi administration
Assassination of Indira Gandhi
Operations involving Indian special forces
Rao administration
Religiously motivated violence in India
Terrorist incidents in Asia in 1984
Revolution-based civil wars
Wars involving India
Insurgencies in Asia
Victims of Sikh terrorism
Terrorism in Punjab, India
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The Faculty of Arts is the largest faculty of the University of Calgary. It is also one of the University's founding faculties, along with commerce, education, engineering, graduate studies, science, and physical education. The official establishment of the current Faculty of Arts was in 2010, following the amalgamation of the four former Faculties of Communication and Culture, Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. However, the Faculty of Arts can further trace its origins back to 1951 under the Faculty of Arts and Science, as it was originally merged with the University's natural sciences departments. This curious measure of dates makes the Faculty of Arts the second oldest faculty as well as the youngest faculty of the University simultaneously, depending on where one counts. Since then, the Faculty of Arts has expanded to become the University's most comprehensive and interdisciplinary faculty, incorporating fields from the humanities, fine arts, and social sciences.
Due to its extensive nature, the Faculty of Arts is housed in various buildings throughout the main campus. The Faculty of Arts currently has more than 7,100 undergraduate students with more than 725 graduate students. The student population is overseen by 378 academic faculty members with the aid of 132 administrative and support staff. Since 1966, the Faculty of Arts has produced 10 Canada Research Chairs, 20 fellows of the Royal Society of Canada, and well over 46,000 alumni throughout the world.
The current Dean of the Faculty of Arts is Richard Sigurdson who was appointed on 1 August 2012. Sigurdson holds a doctorate degree in Political Science from the University of Toronto, where his main topics of research included Canadian politics, immigration, First Nations peoples, and multiculturalism. Prior to becoming Dean to the University of Calgary, Sigurdson was the Dean for the Faculty of Arts and Acting Provost of University College at the University of Manitoba, where he also held the Duff Roblin Professorship of Government
History
The Faculty of Arts can trace its history back to 1906, when the Calgary Normal School was established as a vocational school for teaching. Initially housed in Central School (later as James Short School), the School later moved in 1908 to the McDougall School to accommodate the growing student body. The School over time, began to offer introductory courses from the arts, sciences, engineering, and commerce. During this early history, the School moved several times: as an occupant of the west wing of the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art (then referred simply as Tech), to King Edward School in 1940, and back to the west wing of the Tech campus in 1945. By 1945, the School was replaced with university level courses, operating as an extension of the University of Alberta Faculty of Education. During this time, Calgary had become the largest Canadian city without a home-grown University. Calgarians were determined to change that fact and formed the University Committee as a vehicle to accelerate the effort to transform the Calgary branch into a full-fledged University. In 1948, the Committee published its first official proposal addressing the need for a "University of Southern Alberta," to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. The name was later rejected due to its acronym, USA, as to prevent confusion with the United States of America. In 1951, the Calgary branch started to offer first-year Bachelor of Arts and Sciences programmes under the newly established Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In the same year, the Arts and Science Society (ASS) was created to address student "grievances" for the newly established Faculty. This organisation would later become the Faculty of Arts Student's Association (FASA). In 1960 the Calgary branch, known then as the University of Alberta in Calgary (UAC), had moved from the west wing of the Tech campus, to its current location near University Heights. The founding buildings of the new campus were the Arts and Education (present-day Administration) and the Science and Engineering (present-day Science A) buildings, providing instructional courses for the "soft and hard sciences" respectively.
Creation of the University of Calgary
The first wave of construction conducted throughout early 1960s reignited conversations among students and citizens about the future of UAC with respect to the main campus in Edmonton. On 8 November 1963, a massive student protest dubbed "the Great Autonomy Demonstration of '63" occurred during a UAC Board of Governors' meeting, where protesters demanded autonomy for the budding UAC. The demonstration featured a headless mannequin with the words "Give UAC her head" and an engineering cog wheel with the words "Autonomy 196?." This secessionist movement would be realised in 1966, when the Universities Act was passed, which declared the University of Calgary an autonomous institution from the University of Alberta. The resulting provincial Act granted the University full academic, financial, and administrative independence. In the same year, the Calgary Hall (renamed Craigie Hall) was officially open, which gave space to the University's diverse humanities and performing arts departments. Concurrently, the University became a trustee of the Banff School of Fine Arts, previously a satellite to the University of Alberta. The Banff School would remain an affiliated body to the University's fine arts departments until 1978, when it became an autonomous institution from the University. To pay homage to its past, the University adopted the colours red and yellow – the former from the Calgary Normal School's azure, navy, and red and the latter from the University of Alberta's evergreen and gold. In 1967, the Faculty of Fine Arts was established, incorporating the departments of dance, drama, music, and visual arts. Shortly after, the highly anticipated Social Sciences building reached completion in 1969. The brutalist tower would become home to the university's various social science departments.
The University experienced a rapid period of growth just five years into autonomy. This led the University into considering ambitious expansion plans for the main campus. According to early schematic plans in 1967, the University desired to create building complexes that represent the major clusters of the present Faculty of Arts: fine arts, humanities, and social sciences. The Humanities Complex would have comprised six buildings of seven to nine stories tall along with a tower of over 13 stories tall, all of which would have been located directly east of present-day Administration – none of these plans materialised. The Social Sciences complex would have comprised the Social Sciences Tower along with several four to seven story tall buildings surrounding present-day Administration – only the Tower was completed. Only the Fine Arts Complex was built in its entirety, however not as originally planned. Due to the unbuilt Humanities Complex, the departments of fine arts have to share their intended space with the University's language, literature, and culture departments. It would take another two decades for the visual arts to obtain their own independent space, albeit reduced from the original plan. The incomplete Social Sciences and Humanities complexes were later abandoned by the mid 1970s for unknown reasons.
Decentralised Period
In 1972, the Earth Sciences building was completed, housing the departments of earth science, including anthropology, archeology, and geography. University enrolment increased from 3,740 undergraduates in 1966 to 10,864 by a mere decade later. This started to cause administrative problems and efficiency costs for the giant Faculty of Arts and Sciences. This led to the eventual breakup of the Faculty in 1976, resulting into the creation of the University College and three separate faculties: the Faculty of Sciences, the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the Faculty of Humanities. In the same year, the interdisciplinary Arctic Institute of North America took up residence on the University campus. In 1981, the University College, whose duties were to register first-year students into general studies, humanities, science, and social science programmes, renamed itself into the Faculty of General Studies.
The University would later experience a second wave of growth when it was announced that Calgary (as well as the University) would host the XV Winter Olympic Games. In preparation for the Games, the University undertook several construction projects such as the Olympic Oval, the Athlete's Village (currently part of Residence), the Jack Simpson Gymnasium, and the Arts Building and Parkade which would house the University's visual arts departments. In 1994, the University played host to the Learned Societies Conference, an academic convention of scholars from the social sciences and humanities. The event witnessed about 8,000 delegates from more than 100 academic organisations, discuss and present their research from their respective fields of discipline. In 1998, following the trends of many North American universities, the University flirted with the idea of reorganising and condensing various departments and faculties as a measure to "encourage collaboration while maintaining their separate identities." If realised, this move would have led to the creation of academic strategic clusters or "super-Faculties," which would have merged fine arts, general studies, and humanities into the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, while merging education and social sciences into the Faculty of Education and Social Science. In 2000, the Faculty of General Studies renamed itself again to become the Faculty of Communications and Culture, which better reflected the Faculty's teaching and research activities
Creation of the Faculty of Arts
On 25 June 2009, the University Board of Governors voted to reunify the four separate faculties of Communication and Culture, Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences into a single amalgam, the Faculty of Arts. The new streamlined Faculty was finalised on 1 April 2010, and was designed to conform with other Canadian research universities, most of whom "have two or fewer arts and social science-type faculties." The departments of Music, Dance, and Drama would later merge in July 2013 to form the School of Creative and Performing Arts. In the same year, plans were announced that the University would no longer offer 19 undergraduate programmes in the upcoming academic year—10 of which belonged to the Faculty of Arts. Among these suspended programmes included the History and Philosophy of Science programme – the only such programme offered in the province of Alberta. In 2014, it was announced that the departments of Greek and Roman Studies and Religion had merged into a single department of Classics and Religion. Simultaneously, the department of Archaeology and Anthropology had merged in the same year. The year of 2016 was celebrated as the University's semicentennial, marking 50 years of autonomy and academia. On 28 May to 3 June 2016, the University played host again to the 75th Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, welcoming 8,000 delegates, 70 academic organisations, and more than 5,000 research papers to be housed on the University campus. In June 2016, negotiations for the School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures, and Cultures (SLLLC) were finalised as an effort to condense the University's humanities departments into a single collective entity. SLLLC was officially inaugurated in February 2019.
Student life
The Faculty of Arts is governed from the Office of the Dean of Arts, whose facilities are housed on the 13th floor of the Social Sciences tower. The Faculty however, encourages student participation through the use of department groups such as the Faculty of Arts Students' Association, whose duties include the management of the Arts Lounge found in the 2nd floor of the Social Sciences tower in room SS 217. Arts students have a variety of opportunities provided by the Faculty to supplement their undergraduate and graduate experience. Co-op work experience programmes are made available for students who wish to pursue them. Various student-run clubs exist around campus to cater to the interests of arts students and non-arts students alike. Undergraduate department associations, ranging from archaeology to women's studies, provide services and a sense of community among students of similar programmes. Due to the size of the Arts student population, the Faculty is granted 4 Students' Union representatives, to oversee the affairs of arts students with the University Administration.
Campus Culture
Being the second oldest and largest Faculty, the Arts has contributed a great deal to the history of the University.
Climbing the Social Sciences building
Completed shortly after autonomy, the building was one of the oldest towers to overlook the current University campus. There is an old myth among arts students that the original architects envisioned a green-ivy-grown southern face, hence the lattice like design. As the myth continues, the architects did not take into account the acidity of the building's exterior structure, which made it unsuitable to support such climbing plants. However, years of rain exposure has washed the building's exterior to lower acidic levels, giving reason to the minimal plants that grow along the tower's base.
Social Sciences would become intertwined with similar campus legend. This time involving a student, who for reasons unknown, attempted to mount an expedition along the southern face of the beige Tower. The event has been said to have occurred during the Bermuda Shorts Day of 1982 or 1983. Former students, University staff, and members of the Faculty have recalled a similar incident, however the event remains unconfirmed. The University Archives and Special Collections do maintain that they have a photograph of two people climbing the building with rock climbing equipment in their collections from April 1985. Strangely enough, students have noticed a mysterious black tennis ball wedged just above the Social Sciences building sign, which used to be visible from the connecting bridge from Social Science to Administration. This ball is no longer visible due to exterior renovations of the Tower in the 2016-2017 academic year.
Bermuda Shorts Day
Bermuda Shorts Day is a cornerstone event of student life, however this event had more modest origins. In the summer of 1959, arts student Alan Arthur was ridiculed for wearing shorts in public, an apparent uncommon occurrence for men during the time. In the following year, on Thursday, 31 March 1960, Arthur who was the inaugural Associate-Editor for the newly created student-run newspaper the Gauntlet at the time, took to the campus advertisement board and wrote in chalk, words of what would become the start of a campus tradition. It is hotly contested what the original words were exactly, but one variant goes that Arthur wrote "Tomorrow is Bermuda Shorts Day. Everyone wear Bermuda Shorts." Arthur has stated that he wrote the now immortal words, in part to the arrival of warm spring weather, in jest as a light-hearted April Fools joke, and as an unlikely way to reduce stigma around men donning short-cut trousers. The famed arts alumnus, Maurice Yacowar – who was The Gauntlet's inaugural Editor-in-Chief at the time – was a contemporary and personal friend of Arthur. Yacowar recalls that many individuals of the UAC's 250 student population stayed true to Arthur's announcement, and wore Bermuda shorts that April Fools of 1960. The first BSD, according to Arthur and Yacowar, was a more innocent affair, featuring a highly competitive marbles tournament.
Due to a controversial article entitled "Don't Wear a Poppy," Yacowar was abruptly fired from his position as Editor-in-chief just five months in, receiving a 56.4% student-wide favourability rating against his dismissal. He was then succeeded by his friend Arthur, becoming the second Gauntlet Editor-in-chief. The pair would later graduate in 1962 to pursue lives in academia. Arthur who received a degree in History would later become a – now retired – Professor of History from Brock University while Yacowar, who received a degree in English, would become Emeritus Professor of English and future Dean of Humanities here in the University of Calgary. However, little did Arthur know just how powerful those 9 words would become, as the event gained increasing popularly for students to destress before exams. The BSDs of later years would feature pie duels with the University President, musical gatherings in Administration, games of squamish, and a tricycle race between SU representatives. In 1989, the University with the Students' Union introduced the BSD of modern day, with a single area which included the concert grounds and beer gardens.
In 2014, the University Administration held its first UCalgaryStrong Festival, which was initially meant to honour the victims of the 2014 Calgary Stabbing. The Festival has since become a wholesome year-end celebration, featuring carnival-style games and crafts. It functions as a non-alcoholic alternative to Bermuda Shorts Day.
Calgary School
There is a prevalent myth among students, alumni, and outsiders alike of the perceived conservative or right-leaning themes that surround factions of the social science departments of the Faculty, particularly in the departments of political science, economics, and history. This is due, in part, by the so-called Calgary School, which was a loose, informal collection of former graduates and faculty members who have contributed in some measure, to the modern conservative movement in Alberta and Canada. The existence of the "School" has become common knowledge among students and members of the Faculty. Several arts graduates and Faculty members have been known to place prominently in the Conservative Party of Canada and have held various notable positions in government of arts alumnus Stephen Harper. This perception is strengthened by the popular presence of student-run campus clubs representing centre-right political parties on both the provincial and federal level.
Science A - Administration Tunnel
The existence of tunnels on campus has sparked the imagination of students since the early years of the University. There are, of course, the tunnels that connect the residence buildings with the Dining Centre, as well as the multiple maintenance tunnels which provide central heating and water to every building on campus. However, the oldest of these tunnels is the one that connects the two oldest buildings on campus, Science A with Administration. Then called the Science and Engineering building and the Arts and Education building respectively, this tunnel provided students passage from the harsh prairie winters between 1960 and 1963. This tunnel usage was described by a 1961 editorial from the Gauntlet: "A tunnel between Arts-Education Building and the Science-Engineering Building does exist...but this tunnel more closely resembles a catacomb than a tunnel," only suitable for "troglodytes [who] never come out in the sun." This tunnel however, also functioned as a central heating tunnel, carrying pipes containing pressurised water, hot steam, and electrical wiring. It was for this reason that they were closed by the Board of Governors, due to the potential hazards that the central heating pipes could have on transiting students. Reactions from students were widely negative, and several attempts to re-open the tunnels continued well into the late 1960s. A 1963 Gauntlet editorial summarised the general student reaction: "The tunnel was closed closed to spare us the danger of being parboiled, and this shows a gratifying concern for our welfare. But I, for one, would prefer to die warm." This tunnel still exists today. The tunnel empties its steam from surface vents that protrude the earth in front of the southwest door of Science A and the west doors of Administration. They can only be accessed from Rooms SA 01V, AD 10A, and AD 39V. This tunnel can be seen the Interactive Room Finder under Room SA 01Z.
UAC Student Council Election 1964
Prior to the tradition of painting rocks, a curious incident occurred during the 1964 UAC Student's Council election, where Education candidate Francis Somerville brought "Sylvia", a donkey from the Calgary Zoo, as a publicity vehicle for his election campaign. Under the helm of campaign manager Ron Dougan, Sylvia was adorned with a blanket etched onto it "Don't be a jackass vote Francis." Unfortunately, Somerville would lose that election by a handful of votes to his two female opponents. However, in the same year, he would become the President of the Education Undergraduate Society. Ironically, Dougan would have more luck than his client, when in the following year, he would become the UAC Council representative for Education in 1965.
Soft drink dispute
In 1997, the University decided to make Pepsi Cola Canada Beverages the exclusive supplier of cold drinks on campus, which was a common trend among North American universities. This infuriated some students who regarded the move as undermining institutional independence to a multinational corporation. The rock became a figurative soapbox for "pop soda libertarians", adopting red and white slogans Always Coca-Cola. An underground "anti-Pepsi movement" emerged on campus, advocating for the protection of soft drink alternatives to the Pepsi brand. The "movement" did very little to hurt the University's business relations with the soda giant. However, on certain department floors of Social Science (history and political science particularly), vintage Pepsi machines have been known to offer selections of Coca-Cola products with labels saying Always Coca-Cola attached to the machine's dispensary hole. The existence of such soda machines is quite curious, but it points to the possibly that some arts students and Faculty members are still continuing the cause for campus-wide soda freedom. In September 2017, the Board of Governor's announced their decision to switch from Pepsi Cola to Coca-Cola, as the former's contract had expired.
"I. M. Hungry" student protest
Strangely enough, this was not the first incident where students took up arms over Campus food. In 28 September 1965, a group of former arts and sciences UAC students, Charles Szuch, Michael "Mike" McEwan, Patrick "Pat" Tivy and Donald "Don" Dewar, along with former engineer UAC student Terrance "Terry" Peressini, staged a fake funeral for the figurative fallen student I. M. Hungry in front of the Food Centre (now Dining Centre). According to the participants, the event was done to protest "only the quantity of the food, not the quality." The protest featured a shaky rendition of Taps interpreted by McEwan and a makeshift horn from newspaper. The funeral protest laid to rest the soul of I. M. Hungry, symbolised by the 'body' of former commerce student Stephanie Baker."
Tale of Leon the Frog
One of the most beloved features among arts students is the saga known as "The Tale of Leon the Frog" which was originally written in the early 1970s on top of the stairwell in Social Sciences. It chronicles the journey of a young frog named Leon, and features overheard conversations of students from the time. Such existentialist musings from the 13-flights-of-stairs long poem include: "What is art? Where is?... am I here? Where is my will power? These are barbaric conditions. Is this the hallmark of my life?"Former writer for the now-defunct University of Calgary Gazette, Cathy McLaughlin summarises that "Leon begins, on the basement floor of the Social Sciences stairwell, an existential search for identity and the 'light at the top of the stairs.' He escapes dissection, crucifixion, sexual harassment and an attempt to sell him insurance before hopping, finally, to the 13th floor, where art and a chance to 'express and communicate his experiences to society,' offers some solace."
The suspects who knowingly vandalised campus property have consistently claimed the work was done for the art. The five individuals responsible, who have been later identified as arts alumni, were Joane Cardinal-Schubert, Tony Acosta, Robin Laurence, Catherine McAvity, and Rita McKeough. Cardinal-Schubert has stated that the amphibious hero of the poem is a "metaphor for a student...lost in space." The exact dating of this self-termed "happening" has not been entirely confirmed. However McLaughlin, has hypothesised "the sixth floor segment quotes from a Gauntlet article of Oct. 18, 1974, citing "turmoil, confusion and acrimony" in the political science department, and narrowing Leon's probable date of authorship.," indicating that the "happening" took place around 1974."I find this particular [seventh] floor in a state of turmoil, confusion, and acrimony!*" (Footnote: see the Gauntlet of Thursday Oct. 18/74)The main character himself has been a source of debate, particularly the stylistic naming choice of Leon for an adventurous frog. Campus historians Peter Fortna, Martina King, and Doug McColl have theorised that the name Leon might have been inspired by professor emeritus of Biological Sciences, Dr. Leon W. Browder. This was partly due to his academic tenure coinciding with the speculated period of the early 1970s. Strangely enough, Browder was fondly remembered for his research on early embryonic development for Xenopus laevis, commonly referred to as the African Clawed Frog.
In April 2017, the Tale of Leon the Frog was painted over by the University maintenance for being mistaken for graffiti. To much of the dismay of arts students and alumni, efforts to restore the Tale were undertaken. This effort was completed in May 2017.
The campus rocks
The infamous paint-covered boulders that are found throughout the campus, affectionately known as "the Rocks," have become an integral part of campus culture. This is reflected in the University Registrar's phone numbers sometimes ending with the four digits -7625 (ROCK). The original rock has moved about the campus three times, initially placed north of Craigie Hall for a month, and was later moved east of the MacEwan Student Centre (MacHall). It was then moved to its current location adjacent to Swann Mall and the Registrar, to make way for the 2000 expansion of MacHall. The original rock was unearthed in the summer of 1968 during excavation for the future Social Science building. Campus geologists have determined the rock's origins to be of the Jasper National Park region prior to the last glacial age. The rock was scheduled for removal, but was rescued by members of the Arts Faculty who thought it would serve as an "excellent forum for students to voice their opinion."
Since that summer, the rock has become a common target for students to paint messages and other graphics, as well as to provide for an unmistakable meeting place for students and faculty alike. Soon messages of congratulation such as "Yay Finally Graduated" to the more political "Lougheed is a bum," began to grace the façade of these no-longer-grey rocks. The Administration accepted this curious trend willingly, as it seemed to remove desire from the students to vandalise other buildings on campus. The rocks are often painted to advertise campus events, signal the start of new semesters, and in protest to current affairs.
Ghost of Earth Science
Rumours of a resident ghost have sprung up by arts students and alumni alike, claiming to have seen sightings of a brown haired woman in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology in Earth Sciences. The Faculty Club was a former cafeteria and bar for the University's staff, originally located on the 7th floor of Earth Sciences in 1973, but permanently moved to the 4th floor of MacHall in 1985. Individuals have noticed strange apparitions regarding a "pleasant looking woman" with medium brown hair. The identity of this brunette, sweater wearing poltergeist is unknown, but several people have speculated it to be the former University Advisor to Women's Studies (1960-1966), Dr. Aileen A. Hackett Fish. Dr. Fish passed away on 3 March 1977, but left a long legacy of civil service, women's rights advocacy, and community involvement In 1973, Dr. Fish was awarded the Order of Canada medal and an honorary degree from the University of Calgary in 1976, both for her outstanding service at the community level. The Beta Sigma Phi Sorority established the Dr. Aileen Fish Memorial Bursary award shortly after her death, due to her strong relations with the sorority.
Notable alumni and faculty
References
University of Calgary
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British Army mess dress is the formal military evening dress worn by British Army officers and senior non-commissioned officers in their respective messes or at other formal occasions.
History
Mess uniforms first appeared in the British Army in about 1845, initially utilizing the short shell jacket worn since 1831. This working jacket was worn open over a regimental waistcoat for evening dress. The original purpose was to provide a relatively comfortable and inexpensive alternative to the stiff and elaborate full-dress uniforms then worn by officers for evening social functions such as regimental dinners or balls. With the general disappearance of full dress uniforms after World War I, mess dress became the most colourful and traditional uniform to be retained by most officers in British and Commonwealth armies. Immediately after World War II the cheaper "blue patrols" were worn for several years as mess dress, but by 1956 the traditional uniforms had been readopted.
Contemporary usage
The formal designation of the most commonly worn mess uniform in the British Army is "No. 10 (Temperate) Mess Dress". The form varies according to regiment or corps, but generally a short mess jacket is worn, which either fastens at the neck (being cut away to show the waistcoat, this being traditionally the style worn by cavalry regiments and other mounted corps), or is worn with a white shirt and black bow tie (traditionally the usual style for unmounted regiments, corps, and services).Since regimental amalgamations, the "cut away" or cavalry-style jacket has been adopted by some British Army infantry regiments such as the Royal Regiment of Wales, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and corps such as the Adjutant General's Corps and the Royal Logistic Corps. Officers of the Foot Guards, Royal Engineers, the Parachute Regiment, the Royal Army Medical Corps, and the Royal Regiment of Scotland amongst others still wear the infantry style of jacket.
The colours of mess jackets and trousers reflect those of the traditional full dress uniforms of the regiments in question, as worn until at least 1914. Jackets are, therefore, usually scarlet, dark blue, or rifle green, with collars, cuffs, waistcoats, or lapels in the facing colours of the regiments in question. In the case of those regiments which have undergone amalgamation, features of the former uniforms are often combined. Waistcoats are often richly embroidered, though with modern modifications, such as a core of cotton for gold cording instead of the thick gold cord which made these items very expensive prior to World War II. Non-commissioned officers' mess dress is usually simpler in design, but in the same colours as officers of their regiment.
Most British Army regiments' mess dress incorporates high-waisted, very tight trousers known as overalls, the bottoms of which buckle under leather Wellington or George boots. Ornamental spurs are usually worn by cavalry regiments and corps that traditionally were mounted; some other regiments and corps prescribe spurs for field officers, since in former times these officers would have been mounted. The Rifles do not wear spurs at any rank, following Light Infantry traditions since historically no Light Infantry officer rode on horseback. Scottish regiments wear kilts or tartan trews, and some wear tartan waistcoats as well.
In "No. 11 Warm Weather Mess Dress", a white drill hip-length jacket is worn with either a waistcoat in the same material or a cummerbund of regimental pattern. Blue and various shades of red or green are the most common colours for the cummerbund. Trousers or overalls are the same as in No. 10 Dress.
Female officers and soldiers wear mess jackets in a pattern similar to those of their male counterparts over dark-coloured ankle-length evening dresses. Black hand bags may be carried, and black evening shoes are worn.
Regimental varieties
The various mess dress uniforms of the British Army are as follows:
General Staff: Scarlet mess jacket with royal blue (almost black) facings, royal blue cuffs and royal blue shoulder straps with gold piping. Waistcoat is royal blue with gold buttons.
Household Cavalry
The Life Guards: Scarlet 'cut away' cavalry-style mess jacket with royal blue stand collar, with gold piping which extends down the front and bottom of the jacket, royal blue cuffs with gold piping and gold shoulder cords. A royal blue waistcoat is worn which extends to the neck and has gold piping which runs down the front and bottom of the waistcoat.
The Blues and Royals: Identical to that of the Life Guards except the gold piping on the cuffs is formed into a curl.
Royal Armoured Corps
1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards: Identical to that of the Life Guards except the waistcoat is scarlet rather than royal blue.
Royal Scots Dragoon Guards: Identical to that of the Life Guards except that the cuffs and cuff piping are both gold, and the waistcoat is also gold, with gold piping but with a thin line of red piping between the main body of the waistcoat and the main piping of the waistcoat.
The Royal Lancers:Royal blue 'cut away' cavalry-style mess jacket with scarlet stand collar, with gold piping which extends down the front and bottom of the jacket, scarlet cuffs with gold piping lined in scarlet and gold shoulder cords lined in scarlet. A gold waistcoat is worn which extends to the neck which does not have any piping.
Royal Dragoon Guards: Identical to that of the Life Guards except for the collar has a row of gold piping at the bottom and the regimental badge is worn on the collar, and the shoulder cords are lined in royal blue.
Light Dragoons:Royal blue 'cut away' cavalry-style mess jacket with gold stand collar with gold piping, with a thinner row of gold piping which extends down the front and bottom of the jacket. The jacket has toggle buttons and is worn open A gold waistcoat is worn which extends to the neck and has gold piping which runs down the front and bottom of the waistcoat, with a thinner line of red piping between the main body of the waistcoat and the main piping of the waistcoat.
The King's Royal Hussars: Worn with the traditional crimson and primrose overalls of the Eleventh Hussars, it features a 'cut-away' cavalry style mess jacket with a crimson waistcoat, brass buttons and gold piping. Kukris are worn on the upper arms, and Lieutenant Colonels and above wear ring style gold piping on the collar.
Royal Tank Regiment: A royal blue 'cut away' cavalry-style mess jacket is worn by officers, with royal blue stand collar, with gold piping which extends down the front and bottom of the jacket, and gold austrian knots on the cuffs, and gold shoulder cords. The Tank badge is worn on the upper right sleeve. A scarlet waistcoat with a thin line of gold piping and gold buttons is worn which extends to the neck. Dark blue overalls with a 2” black mohair braid stripe are worn over George boots. NCOs wear a short, royal blue mess jacket with shoulder straps, shawl collar with regimental badges and plain cuffs closed with two buttons, over a white turn down collared shirt and black bow tie.
Royal Yeomanry: A royal blue 'cut-away' cavalry style mess jacket is worn with a scarlet stand collar, with silver piping that runs along the bottom of the collar and also runs down the front and bottom of the mess jacket. The mess jacket also features silver shoulder boards, and scarlet cuffs which have silver piping. A silver braid fern leaf on scarlet backing is worn on the left arm. A scarlet waistcoat which buttons to the neck, with silver piping and silver braid is also worn.
Royal Regiment of Artillery
Double-breasted royal blue mess jacket with two rows of four gold regimental buttons on either side, peaked lapels, and scarlet facings, worn unbuttoned, and royal blue shoulder straps, and a row of three gold buttons on each cuff, arranged vertically. Senior NCO's mess jackets are the same except that the mess jacket has a shawl collar and there are three buttons on each side of the jacket rather than four, and rank stripes are worn on the right upper arm, and the buttons on the cuffs are smaller (female Senior NCO's mess jackets do not have cuff buttons). A royal blue waistcoat is worn with both variations.
Corps of Royal Engineers
A scarlet mess jacket with scarlet shoulder straps, royal blue cuffs, and a royal blue shawl collar. The regimental badge is worn on both lapels, and rank stripes are worn on the right upper arm by NCOs. A royal blue waistcoat with four gold buttons is also worn.
Royal Corps of Signals
Identical to that of the Corps of Royal Engineers except for the regimental badge worn on both lapels. The variation as worn by NCOs does not feature shoulder straps.
Infantry
Grenadier Guards: A scarlet mess jacket without shoulder straps, royal blue cuffs with the number of rows of gold piping denoting the wearer's rank, and a royal blue shawl collar. The regimental badge is worn on both lapels, and rank stripes are worn on the right upper arm by NCOs. A royal blue waistcoat with four gold buttons is also worn. The version worn by NCOs does not feature the thin line of gold piping on the cuffs.
Coldstream Guards: Identical to that worn by the Grenadier guards except for the regimental badge worn on both lapels, and the four gold buttons on the waistcoat are arranged in pairs. The version worn by NCOs feature the white rose of York on either lapel rather than the regimental badge.
Scots Guards: Identical to that worn by the Grenadier guards except for the regimental badge worn on both lapels, and the three gold buttons on the waistcoat rather than four. The version worn by NCOs feature the thistle of Scotland on either lapel rather than the regimental badge.
Irish Guards: Identical to that worn by the Grenadier guards except for the regimental badge worn on both lapels. The version worn by NCOs feature the shamrock of Ireland on either lapel rather than the regimental badge.
Welsh Guards: Identical to that worn by the Grenadier guards except for the regimental badge worn on both lapels, and the five gold buttons on the waistcoat rather than four. The version worn by NCOs feature the leek of Wales on either lapel rather than the regimental badge
Royal Regiment of Scotland: A single-breasted scarlet mess jacket with four gold regimental buttons, royal blue notched lapels with white piping, royal blue cuffs also with white piping, and gold shoulder cords. A royal blue waistcoat with gold piping and four gold regimental buttons is also worn. The version worn by NCO's has a royal blue shawl collar, only three regimental gold buttons, no piping on the cuffs, no shoulder cords and the waistcoat worn is regimental tartan rather than royal blue.
Royal Regiment of Fusiliers: For officers, a scarlet 'cut away' cavalry-style mess jacket with royal blue stand collar with regimental badge, with gold piping which extends down the front and bottom of the jacket, as well as along the bottom of the collar, royal blue cuffs with no piping and gold shoulder cords. A royal blue waistcoat is worn which extends to the neck and has gold buttons. NCOs wear instead a single-breasted scarlet mess jacket with four gold regimental buttons, scarlet shawl lapels with the regimental badge on each lapel, no shoulder cords, rank stripes on the right upper arm and no buttons on the jacket. A royal blue waistcoat with four gold regimental buttons is worn.
Royal Anglian Regiment: A single-breasted scarlet mess jacket with four gold buttons, gold shoulder cords, royal blue cuffs without piping, and a royal blue shawl collar without regimental badge. A royal blue waistcoat with four gold regimental buttons is also worn. The version worn by NCOs does not feature shoulder cords or buttons on the mess jacket.
Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment: For officers, a scarlet 'cut away' cavalry-style mess jacket with gold stand collar with regimental badge, with gold piping which extends down the front and bottom of the jacket, as well as along the bottom of the collar, gold cuffs with white piping and gold shoulder cords lined in scarlet. A royal blue waistcoat is worn which extends to the neck and is closed by hooks, with gold piping which is formed into an austrian knot at the bottom. NCOs wear instead a single-breasted scarlet mess jacket with four gold regimental buttons, gold shawl lapels with the regimental badge on each lapel, no shoulder cords, rank stripes on the right upper arm and a badge on the left upper arm. A royal blue waistcoat with four gold regimental buttons is worn.
Duke of Lancaster's Regiment: For officers, a single-breasted scarlet mess jacket with gold shoulder cords, royal blue shawl collar with white piping, royal blue cuffs, with white piping with royal blue naval-style 'cuff slashes' with three gold buttons arranged vertically. A royal lion of England is worn centrally on each lapel. The waistcoat is royal blue with piping of gold braid arranged into an Austrian knot at the bottom, and four gold buttons. The version worn by NCOs does not feature shoulder cords, piping on the shawl collar, cuffs, or waistcoat and does not feature the cuff slashes.
The Yorkshire Regiment: For officers, single-breasted scarlet mess jacket with four buttons royal blue shoulder straps, royal blue shawl collar, royal blue cuffs, with royal blue naval-style 'cuff slashes' with three gold buttons arranged vertically. The regimental badge is worn centrally on each lapel. The waistcoat is royal blue with much gold braid around the edge. The version (also single-breasted) worn by NCOs does not feature shoulder straps, has a scarlet shawl collar, four gold buttons, red cuffs, and features a royal blue waistcoat with four gold buttons that features no gold braid. Rank stripes are worn on the upper right arm.
Royal Irish Regiment: For officers, a scarlet single-breasted mess jacket with no buttons, a rifle-green shawl collar with the regimental badge worn on each lapel, rifle green shoulder cords, rifle green cuffs, and a single-breasted rifle-green waistcoat with four gold buttons. The version worn by NCOs is the same, but does not have shoulder cords and the rank insignia is worn on the upper right arm.
The Rifles: For officers, a rifle green cutaway 'cavalry style' mess jacket with scarlet stand collar, black corded piping down the front and bottom, and hussar-style braiding in black across the front of the jacket. The collar and cuffs are scarlet but are overlaid with a complex amount of black braid. A rifle green waistcoat is worn that has red piping, again overlaid with a lot of black braiding down the front and bottom of the waistcoat. The waistcoat is closed by 'hook and eye' fasteners. NCOs wear instead a rifle green single-breasted mess jacket with no buttons, a rifle-green shawl collar with no regimental badge. Rank stripes are worn on the upper right arm of the mess jacket. A similar rifle green waistcoat to that worn by officers is worn, albeit with less of the black braiding overlaid on the red piping.
The Mercian Regiment: For officers, a scarlet cutaway 'cavalry style' mess jacket with a buff-coloured stand collar featuring the regimental badge, with gold piping on the collar that extends down the front of the jacket, gold shoulder cords, and buff-coloured cuffs. A royal blue waistcoat is worn which buttons up to the neck and has gold piping, with the regimental badge at the bottom of the jacket on either side. NCOs wear instead a scarlet single-breasted scarlet mess jacket with a scarlet shawl collar, scarlet cuffs, and with the regimental badge worn on each lapel. A royal blue waistcoat with royal blue lapels and four gold buttons is worn, and rank stripes are worn on the upper right arm of the jacket.
The Royal Welsh: For officers, a scarlet cutaway 'cavalry style' mess jacket with a yellow stand collar featuring the regimental badge, with a thin layer of gold piping on the collar that extends down the front of the jacket, gold shoulder cords lined in scarlet, and yellow cuffs, and a badge on the left upper arm. A royal blue waistcoat is worn which fastens up to the neck by 'hook and eye' fastenings and has another thin layer of gold piping, with austrian knots at the bottom of the jacket on either side. NCOs wear instead a scarlet single-breasted scarlet mess jacket with four gold buttons and a yellow shawl collar, yellow cuffs, and with the regimental badge worn on each lapel. A royal blue waistcoat with no lapels and four gold buttons is worn, and rank stripes are worn on the upper right arm of the jacket, and a badge on the upper left arm.
The Parachute Regiment: A single-breasted scarlet mess jacket with four gold buttons and a maroon shawl collar, maroon cuffs, maroon shoulder straps and with the regimental badge worn on each lapel. A royal blue waistcoat with no lapels and four gold buttons is worn. The version worn by NCOs is identical except that rank stripes and parachute badge are worn on the upper right arm of the jacket.
Royal Gurkha Rifles: Identical to that worn by officers of the Rifles, except that it features black shoulder cords, and black cuffs instead of scarlet ones.
Army Air Corps
For officers, a royal blue cutaway 'cavalry style' mess jacket with cambridge blue stand collar, gold piping down the front and bottom of the jacket, as well as down the bottom of the collar, and cambridge blue cuffs with a thin line of gold piping, and royal blue shoulder straps. A cambridge blue waistcoat is worn with gold piping which is closed by 'hook and eye' fasteners. NCOs wear instead a royal blue single-breasted mess jacket with no buttons, a cambridge blue shawl collar with no regimental badge. Rank stripes are worn on the upper right arm of the mess jacket.
Royal Logistic Corps
A royal blue cutaway 'cavalry style' mess jacket with a royal blue stand collar, a gold chain passing between the two parts of the collar, with gold piping down the front and bottom of the jacket, as well as down the top and bottom of the collar, and royal blue cuffs with a line of gold piping, and gold shoulder cords. A royal blue waistcoat with gold piping is worn with gold piping that is closed by 'hook and eye' fasteners. That worn by NCOs is the same, only the lines of gold piping on jacket and waistcoat are thinner, it features gold shoulder straps rather than shoulder cords, and rank stripes are worn on the upper right arm. The mess jacket as worn by female NCOs is the same as that worn by male NCOs but does not feature shoulder straps.
Royal Army Chaplains' Department
A royal blue mess jacket with a purple shawl collar featuring the departmental badge on either lapel, purple cuffs, and royal blue shoulder straps. A purple cummerbund, black clerical shirt, and white clerical collar are also worn.
Royal Army Medical Corps
For officers, a royal blue single-breasted mess jacket with four gold buttons, a dull cherry-red shawl collar with corps badge on each lapel, dull cherry-red cuffs, and dull cherry-red shoulder straps. A dull cherry-red waistcoat with four gold buttons is also worn. The version worn by NCOs has no buttons on the mess jacket, lacks shoulder straps and has rank stripes on the upper right arm of the mess jacket.
Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
A royal-blue single-breasted mess jacket with no buttons, a royal blue shawl collar with the corps badge on each lapel, royal blue shoulder straps, and royal blue cuffs. A scarlet waistcoat with four gold buttons is also worn. The version worn by NCOs lacks the shoulder straps and the corps badge on the lapels of the mess jacket, and features rank stripes on the upper right arm, and features three gold buttons on the cuffs.
Adjutant General's Corps
A scarlet cavalry-style 'cut away' style mess jacket with a royal blue stand collar featuring the corps badge, with gold piping on the top and bottom of the collar, and running down the front of the jacket, gold shoulder straps, and royal blue cuffs with gold piping. A royal blue waistcoat is worn with complicated gold braid down the front and bottom of the jacket, which buttons to the neck. That worn by NCOs is the same but lacks shoulder straps, the gold piping on the cuffs, corps badge on the collar, and it features gold piping on the waistcoat instead of gold braid and rank stripes are worn on the upper right arm.
Royal Army Veterinary Corps
A black double breasted mess jacket with no buttons, with two button holes on each side of the jacket, peaked lapels with burgundy facings, black cuffs, and black shoulder straps. NCOs wear their rank stripes on the right upper arm. A black single-breasted waistcoat with lapels and four gold buttons is also worn.
Small Arms School Corps
For officers, a scarlet single-breasted mess jacket, with no buttons, with a Cambridge blue shawl collar with the corps badge on both lapels, scarlet shoulder straps, and Cambridge blue cuffs is worn. A single-breasted Cambridge blue waistcoat with four gold buttons is also worn. The version worn by NCOs has no shoulder straps, lacks the Cambridge-blue cuffs and features rank stripes on the upper right arm, but is in all other respects identical.
Royal Army Dental Corps
For officers, a single-breasted royal blue mess jacket with four gold buttons, with a green shawl collar with corps badge on each lapel, green shoulder straps, and green cuffs is worn. A single-breasted green waistcoat without lapels with four gold buttons is also worn. The version worn by NCOs has no shoulder straps, lacks the green cuffs and features rank stripes on the upper right arm, but is in all other respects the same.
Intelligence Corps
For officers, a single-breasted cypress green mess jacket with no buttons, with a French grey shawl collar with corps badge on each lapel, French grey shoulder straps, and French grey cuffs is worn. A single-breasted French grey lapelled waistcoat with four gold buttons is also worn. The version worn by NCOs has no shoulder straps, lacks the French grey cuffs and features rank stripes on the upper right arm, but is in all other respects identical.
Royal Army Physical Training Corps
For officers, a black 'cut-away' cavalry style mess jacket is worn with a scarlet stand collar, with gold piping. The corps badge is featured on the collar. The mess jacket also features scarlet shoulder straps and scarlet cuffs, and a scarlet waistcoat is worn which buttons to the neck and is fastened by gold buttons. NCOs wear instead a scarlet single-breasted mess jacket with a black shawl collar with the corps badge on each lapel, black cuffs, rank stripes on the upper right arm, and no shoulder straps. A black single-breasted waistcoat with no lapels and four gold buttons is also worn.
Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps
For officers, a scarlet 'cut-away' cavalry style mess jacket is worn with a grey stand collar, with white piping that runs along the bottom of the collar and also runs down the front and bottom of the mess jacket, with ten gold buttons. The mess jacket also features scarlet shoulder straps with white piping, and grey cuffs which have white piping that terminates in an Austrian knot. A grey waistcoat is worn which buttons to the neck and is fastened by gold buttons and has white piping. The version worn by male NCOs is identical but has no shoulder straps, no white piping on the cuffs, and no buttons on the mess jacket or waistcoat. The version worn by female officers is similar to that worn by male officers but has instead a scarlet stand collar with no white piping at the bottom, instead the piping goes across the top of the collar and down the front and bottom of the jacket. The jacket also features scarlet cuffs which have white piping that does not terminate in an Austrian knot, and four gold buttons on the opposite side of the jacket from male officers, and no waistcoat is worn.
Honourable Artillery Company
For officers, a royal blue "cut-away" cavalry style mess jacket is worn with a scarlet stand collar (featuring the regimental badge), with gold piping that runs along the bottom of the collar and also runs down the front and bottom of the mess jacket. The mess jacket also features gold shoulder cords, and scarlet cuffs which have gold piping that terminates in an Austrian knot. A scarlet waistcoat is worn which buttons to the neck and is fastened by gold buttons and has gold piping. The version worn by male NCOs is identical but has thinner shoulder cords, thinner gold piping on the cuffs, waistcoat and stand collar, and no buttons on the mess jacket or waistcoat (instead being fastened by 'hook and eye' fastenings).
General Service Corps
A single-breasted scarlet mess jacket without buttons, with a brown shawl collar featuring the corps badge on both lapels, brown shoulder straps and brown cuffs. A brown waistcoat with four gold buttons is also worn.
References
British military uniforms
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Edward Bulwer Cochems (; February 4, 1877 – April 9, 1953) was an American football player and coach. He played football for the University of Wisconsin from 1898 to 1901 and was the head football coach at North Dakota Agricultural College—now known as North Dakota State University (1902–1903), Clemson University (1905), Saint Louis University (1906–1908), and the University of Maine (1914). During his three years at Saint Louis, he was the first football coach to build an offense around the forward pass, which became a legal play in the 1906 college football season. Using the forward pass, Cochems' 1906 team compiled an undefeated 11–0 record, led the nation in scoring, and outscored opponents by a combined score of 407 to 11. He is considered by some to be the "father of the forward pass" in American football.
Early life
Cochems was born in 1877 at Sturgeon Bay, the county seat of Door County on Wisconsin's Door Peninsula. He was one of 11 children, and "the smallest of seven brothers." His older brother, Henry Cochems, preceded him at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was a star football player and shot putter. Cochems also had a twin brother, Carl Cochems (1877–1954), who became a noted opera singer.
Athlete at Wisconsin
Cochems attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he competed for the Badgers in football, baseball and track. He was the captain of the 1901 Wisconsin baseball team, but he gained his greatest acclaim as a football player. Cochems began playing at the left end position, but was moved to the left halfback position for the 1900 and 1901 seasons. The Badgers football team posted a 35–4–1 record during his four seasons of play. Together with Norsky Larson and Keg Driver, Cochems reportedly made up "the most feared backfield trio in the middle west."
Max Loeb, a classmate, remembered Cochems as "one of the most spectacular men of my time ... [w]onderfully built, handsome and affable ..." After Cochem's death, another classmate, O.G. Erickson, wrote:
While well muscled and compactly built, Cochems never weighed more than 165 pounds, but I never saw another player who made better use of his poundage. He played four years of 70-minute football (a game then consisted of two 35-minute halves), and I don't remember him ever being taken out of a game because of injuries.
After Cochems helped the Badgers to a 50–0 win over Kansas in 1901, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported, "Larson and Cochems again and again skirted the Kansas ends for gains of forty, fifty, sixty and seventy yards. Nothing approaching the play of the Badgers trio of backs, Larson, Driver and Cochems, has ever been seen on Randall Field."
On November 28, 1901, in his final game as a Wisconsin football player, Cochems ran back a kickoff for a touchdown against Amos Alonzo Stagg's Chicago Maroons. According to a contemporaneous press account, the touchdown run came late in the game with Wisconsin already leading 29 to 0: "The Maroons appeared to be demoralized, and on the kick-off Cochems caught the ball on his own twelve-yard line and ran ninety-eight yards for a touchdown, the Chicago players making little or no effort to stop him." Twelve years later, football historian and former University of Wisconsin coach Parke H. Davis described the same run more colorfully, reporting that Cochems "dashed and dodged, plunged and writhed through all opponents for a touch-down... Cochem's great flight presented all of the features of speed, skill, and chance which must combine to, make possible the full-field run... he boldly laid his course against the very center of Chicago's oncoming forwards, bursting their central bastion, and then cleverly sprinting and dodging the secondary defenders." According to Cochems' obituary in the Wisconsin alumnus, his kickoff return against Chicago in 1901 "brought him undying fame as a gridder."
Cochems also scored two touchdowns in a 39–5 victory over Chicago in November 1900, and has been credited with four touchdowns in a 54–0 win against Notre Dame in 1900.
Cochems was also a bicycling enthusiast who gained attention for a 1900 bicycle trip across Europe with classmate George Mowry. The pair left Wisconsin on August 1, 1900, and rode through England, Scotland, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain. Their cyclometers were stolen after they had completed 1,500 miles, and they had no record of the full distance they covered. The entire trip cost each of the two $125. On their return to Wisconsin, they were dressed in "well-worn knickerbockers" that "gave plain evidence of much exposure to variable weather and of hard riding."
Early coaching career
In 1902, Cochems at age 25 was hired as the head football coach at North Dakota Agricultural College (now North Dakota State University) at Fargo. He led the North Dakota Aggies to an undefeated and unscored upon record in 1902, outscoring opponents by a combined 168 to 0. His 1903 team at North Dakota Agricultural College finished with five wins and one loss.
In January 1904, the University of Wisconsin athletic board voted to select Cochems to serve as the school's assistant football coach at a salary of $800. Cochems returned to Madison in 1904 as both assistant football coach and assistant athletic director.
In December 1904, the selection of a new head coach at Wisconsin was put to a straw vote with Cochems running against Phil King and two other candidates. King received 215 of the 325 votes cast.
Having lost his bid for the head coaching job, Cochems signed in February 1905 to become the head football coach at Clemson. In the 1905 football season, Cochems led Clemson to shutout wins over Georgia (35–0), Alabama (25–0), and Auburn (6–0), but closed the season with consecutive losses to Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech, for a 3–2–1 record.
St. Louis University
Preparation to play under the new rules
In February 1906, Cochems was hired as the head football coach at St. Louis University. The 1906 college football season was played with new rules, which included legalizing the forward pass. Cochems had reportedly long been an enthusiast of the forward pass.
At St. Louis, Cochems rejoined fellow Wisconsiner and former Badger halfback Bradbury Robinson. They had met in the pre-season of 1905 when Robinson, who had already transferred to St. Louis, was working out with his former Wisconsin teammates. Cochems was an assistant coach with the Badgers that year.
Like Cochems, Robinson was fascinated by the potential of the forward pass. Robinson was introduced to the forward pass in 1904 by Wisconsin teammate, H.P. Savage, who threw the ball overhand almost as far as Robinson was punting it to him. Savage taught Robinson how to throw a spiral pass, and the forward pass thereafter became Robinson's "football hobby."
To prepare for the first season under the new rules, Cochems convinced the university to allow him to take his team to a Jesuit sanctuary at Lake Beulah in southern Wisconsin for "the sole purpose of studying and developing the pass." Newbery Medal winning author Harold Keith wrote in Esquire magazine that it was at Lake Beulah in August 1906 that "the first, forward pass system ever devised" was born.
Football's first legal forward pass
On September 5, 1906, in the first game of the 1906 season, St. Louis faced Carroll College, and it was in that game that Robinson threw football's first legal forward pass to Jack Schneider.
Cochems reportedly did not start calling pass plays in the Carroll game until after he had grown frustrated with the failure of his offense to move the ball on the ground. After an initial pass attempt from Robinson to Schneider fell incomplete (resulting in a turnover to Carroll under the 1906 rules), Cochems called for his team to again execute the play he called the "air attack" or the "projectile pass." Robinson threw the fat, rugby-style ball for a 20-yard touchdown pass to Schneider. St. Louis won the game by a score of 22–0.
1906 season
St. Louis completed the 1906 season undefeated (11–0) and led the nation in scoring, having outscored opponents by a combined 407 to 11. During the 1906 season, the forward pass was a key element in the St. Louis offense. Bradbury Robinson threw a 67-yard pass, and Jack Schneider threw a 65-yard pass. In his book on the history of the sport, David Nelson wrote, "Considering the size, shape and weight of the ball, these were extraordinary passes."
The highlight of the 1906 season was St. Louis' 39–0 win against Iowa. St. Louis completed eight of ten pass attempts (for an average of 20 yards) against Iowa, and four of the passes resulted in touchdowns. On the last play of the game, St. Louis threw a final pass 25 yards in the air to a receiver who caught the ball "on the dead run" for a touchdown. Cochems said that Iowa's poor showing in the game "resulted from its use of the old style play and its failure to effectively use the forward pass", as Iowa attempted only "two basketball-style forward passes."
The 1906 Iowa game was refereed by one of the top football officials in the country, West Point's Lt. Horatio B. "Stuffy" Hackett, who became a member of the American Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee in December 1907. Hackett later told a reporter, "It was the most perfect exhibition... of the new rules ... that I have seen all season and much better than that of Yale and Harvard. St. Louis' style of pass differs entirely from that in use in the east. ... The St. Louis university players shoot the ball hard and accurately to the man who is to receive it ... The fast throw by St. Louis enables the receiving player to dodge the opposing players, and it struck me as being all but perfect."
Hackett's analysis was reprinted in newspapers across the country, and when it appeared in The Washington Post, the headline read: "FORWARD PASS IN WEST – Lieut. Hackett Says St. Louis University Has Peer of Them All. – Says that Mound City Champions Showed Nearest Approach to Perfect Pass He Has Seen This Year."
Knute Rockne biographer, Ray Robinson, wrote, "The St. Louis style of forward pass, as implemented by Cochems, was different from the pass being thrown by eastern players. Cochems did not protect his receiver by surrounding him with teammates, as was the case in the East."
Cochems as advocate of the forward pass
After the 1906 season, Cochems published a 10-page article entitled "The Forward Pass and On-Side Kick" in the 1907 edition of Spalding's How to Play Foot Ball (edited by Walter Camp). Cochems explained in words and photographs (of Robinson) how the forward pass could be thrown and how passing skills could be developed. "[T]he necessary brevity of this article will not permit of a detailed discussion of the forward pass," Cochems lamented. "Should I begin to explain the different plays in which the pass... could figure, I would invite myself to an endless task."
In December 1909, The Washington Post published Cochems comments on the game under the headline, "FOOTBALL LIKE AN AIRSHIP WOULD OPEN UP THE GAME." Cochems advocated the redesign of the football to render it more aerodynamic and easy to handle:
The story in a nutshell is this. The ball is too large and too light. Some of the best teams in the country find it impossible to use the pass owing to lack of players who can make it. ... Since it is impossible to grow larger hands and it is possible to make the ball conform to human dimensions, why not make the ball fit the needed conditions? ... With a ball such as I have proposed, longer, narrower, and a bit heavier, so that it would carry in the face of a strong wind, I firmly believe that the game of rugby would develop into one of the most beautiful and versatile sports the world ever saw.
Cochems' recommendations essentially describe the modern football. In 1909, he had accurately predicted, "With the new ball, deeper offensive formations could be logically planned and carried into execution."
In a 1932 interview with a Wisconsin sports columnist, Cochems claimed that Yale, Harvard and Princeton (the so-called "Big Three" football powers in the early decades of the sport) all called him in having him explain the forward pass to them.
Failure of the forward pass to catch on quickly
Cochems was disappointed that his pass-oriented offense did not catch on quickly. In 1907, after the first season of the forward pass, one football writer noted that, "with the single exception of Cochems, football teachers were groping in the dark."
It would be seven years before Knute Rockne began to follow Cochems' example at Notre Dame. Rockne acknowledged Cochems as the early leader in the use of the pass, observing, "One would have thought that so effective a play would have been instantly copied and become the vogue. The East, however, had not learned much or cared much about Midwest and western football; ondeed, the East scarcely realized that football existed beyond the Alleghanies ..."
In his history of the game, College Football Hall of Fame coach and football authority David M. Nelson echoed Rockne's point, noting that "eastern football had little respect for football west of Carlise, Pennsylvania... [they] may not have recognized what was happening in the West, but the new forward-passing game was off to an impressive start."
Author Murray Greenberg, in his biography of 1920s passing sensation Benny Friedman, agreed that the passing game as Cochems implemented it just did not catch on: "Cochems and his St. Louis eleven aside, rarely during the early part of the century's second decade did a team try to dominate the game through the air."
1907 and 1908 seasons
Cochems led the St. Louis football team to a record of 7–3–1 in 1907. In September 1907, Cochems introduced another innovation at St. Louis, having his players wear numbers to allow spectators to identify individual players. The move was called "a decided innovation" and was compared to the numbering of jockeys in horse-racing. Cochems team defeated the Nebraska Cornhuskers on November 28, 1907, by a score of 34 to 0. Cochems took his team to the West Coast for a Christmas Day game against Washington State College. St. Louis lost the game by a score of 11 to 0. The 1907 team was "Varsity-Trans-Mississippi champions".
After the 1907 season, charges that Cochems was using professional players were made. Several Midwestern universities, including Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin, refused to schedule games with St. Louis for the 1908 season, "claiming the team is tainted with professionals."
In 1908, Cochems' team compiled a record of 7–2–1, defeating the Arkansas (24–0), but losing games to Pittsburgh (13–0) and the Carlisle (17–0) and playing Sewanee to a tie.
On January 1, 1909, Cochems coached a St. Louis all-star football team against a Chicago all-star football game coached by Walter Eckersall. The game drew extensive publicity when St. Louis Browns pitcher Rube Waddell asked Cochems to play on the St. Louis team, and Cochems agreed. The Chicago team won by a score of 12 to 4.
In March 1909, The New York Times reported that St. Louis University had accepted Cochems' resignation as athletic coach. One writer noted that "the circumstances of his departure from SLU are murky."
Football career after St. Louis University
In 1909, Cochems worked for a time as the director of the public playground system in St. Louis. In November 1909, a Wisconsin newspaper reported that Cochems was coaching "a minor team" in St. Louis and had been beaten badly by "another equally minor institution" from Chicago. The report noted that Cochems "changed his berth for some unexplained reason this year and is doing a bump the bumps that makes a marble rolling down stairs look like a toboggan for smoothness, by comparison."
In the fall of 1910, Cochems was reportedly coaching the Barnes University football team, playing its games at Handland Park in St. Louis. He also coached a Missouri "all-star" team that played against Frank Longman's Notre Dame team at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis on Christmas Day 1910. Notre Dame won the game by a score of 12 to 0, and one newspaper called the game a "fiasco" and reported there was "not much that would indicate all star football" in the play of Cochems' team.
In January 1911, Cochems was considered for the position of football coach at the University of Wisconsin, but did not get the job. He moved to New York in 1911.
Cochems briefly returned to coaching in 1914 as the head football coach for the University of Maine. He led Maine to a 6–3 record in 1914.
After he left coaching, Cochems continued to be connected to the sport and interacted with its leading figures. He attended meetings of the Rules Committee with the likes of Walter Camp and John Heisman. In 1911, he proposed a "radical" change in the rules, allowing each team a single set of five downs within which to score. He also became a well-known game official. In 1921, he was the umpire for the Notre Dame – Army game played at West Point.
Organizer and political activist
In the fall of 1911, Cochems moved to New York and announced that he had abandoned football for politics. Over the next 20 years, Cochems engaged in a career as an "organizer, speaker and as political campaigner." He was director of the National Speakers Bureau in 1912 during the campaign of Theodore Roosevelt, and again in 1916 during the Charles Evans Hughes campaign. He also worked in the campaigns of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.
During World War I, he served as civilian aide to the adjutant general at Long Island.
He was a national organizer for the American Commission for Relief in Belgium.
Cochems led an effort to end Prohibition as the president of the Association of American Rights—Repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.
He also served on the staff of the Gibson Private Relief Association of New York.
Later years
After living in New York for approximately 20 years, Cochems returned to Madison in the early 1930s. In 1933, he was appointed as one of three assistants to the state's NRA director and was doing speaking engagements throughout the state. In 1940, he was employed "installing a system of educational recreation in state institutions." When the position of head football coach at St. Louis University opened up in 1940, Cochems put in his name, but the job went to Dukes Duford.
Family and death
Cochems married May Louise Mullen of Madison in August 1902. Their wedding trip ended at Fargo, where Cochems had been hired as athletic director. They were together until his death and had five children: daughter Elizabeth and sons John, Henry, Phillip and David, who was killed in action in Essen, Germany in the closing weeks of World War II.
Cochems died after a long illness on April 9, 1953, in the same Madison hospital in which his 14th grandchild had been born a week earlier.
Football legacy
Father of the forward pass
Recognition of Cochems' role in the development of the forward pass has been inconsistent.
Following the first season in which the play was legal, Walter Camp chose Cochems to write the only article on the forward pass in the 1907 edition of Spalding's How to Play Foot Ball, which Camp edited.
Some have advocated for recognition of Cochems as the "father of the forward pass." As early as 1909, a writer in The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York) wrote: "Cochems was the first coach to grasp the possibilities of the forward pass. He is a tricky and resourceful gridiron master with a large repertoire of plays and a dynamic personality." In 1920, a syndicated story on Cochems' becoming the head of the "Order of Camels" referred to him as "the famous daddy of the forward pass."
St. Louis Post Dispatch sports columnist Ed Wray was one of the earliest advocates for Cochems' role in developing the forward pass. In a 1940 column, Wray described Cochems' 1906 offensive scheme:
He also alternated the long 'projectile pass' (that's what Cochems called it), with a short, fast pass over the line of scrimmage, five yards out from the center. Equipped with this attack, then absolutely new, Cochems' team had the football world popeyed after the first two or three games of the season. Owning a team with a powerful running attack, Cochems' eleven would pound the enemy line, draw in the defense and then amaze the opposition by shooting long forward pass for big gains. ... And yet today Rockne gets the credit for a discovery that rightfully belongs to a graying resident of Madison, Wis., now in the middle sixties, whose name is almost forgotten -- Eddie Cochems.
In a November 1944 article in Esquire (entitled "Pioneer of the Forward Pass"), Newbery Award-winning author Harold Keith concluded that Cochems was "unquestionably the father of the forward pass."
After Cochems' death in 1953, Philip A. Dynan, then serving as the publicity director at St. Louis University, became an advocate for Cochems' claim to be the father of the forward pass. In October 1954, an Associated Press sports writer reported on Dynan's efforts on behalf of Cochems:
There are various ways used by college publicity men — 'drum beaters' in the sports writers vernacular—to get the names of their schools into the newspapers. A new twist has been developed by Phil Dynan, who handles such work for St. Louis University. Dynan, who doesn't have a football team to promote any more since his school dropped the game, nevertheless still is operating on a gridiron basis. His gimmick is a claim, 'based on considerable research,' that St. Louis was the first team to throw a forward pass.
Dynan unsuccessfully lobbied to have Cochems inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in the 1960s, and published an article on Cochems in 1967 titled "Father of the Forward Pass."
In his book The Anatomy of a Game: Football, the Rules, and the Men Who Made the Game, Coach Nelson, the secretary-editor of the NCAA Football Rules Committee starting in 1962, stated that "E. B. Cochems is to forward passing what the Wright brothers are to aviation and Thomas Edison is to the electric light."
In 2009, SI.com and Sports Illustrated Kids listed Cochems' development of the forward pass as the first of 13 "Revolutionary Moments in Sports."
Contrary views
A contrary view was taken by football coaching legend Amos Alonzo Stagg. In Allison Danzig's book, "The History of American Football," Stagg said: "I have seen statements giving credit to certain people originating the forward pass. The fact is that all coaches were working on it. The first season, 1906, I personally had sixty-four different forward pass patterns." In 1954, Stagg told a reporter, "Eddie Cochems, who coached at St. Louis University in 1906, also claimed to have invented the pass as we know it today ... It isn't so, because after the forward pass was legalized in 1906, most of the schools commenced experimenting with it and nearly all used it." Stagg asserted that, as far back as 1894, before the rules committee even considered the forward pass, one of his players used to throw the ball "like a baseball pitcher."
After reviewing a letter from Stagg in 1948 asserting that "Eddie Cochems was not the originator of the long spiral pass," Deke Houlgate, author of "The Football Thesaurus", retracted a credit previously given to Cochems in his book:
Coach Stagg has my thorough-going agreement that Coach Cochems may not have been the first to perfect the long spiral pass because very few mentors have done so since the year 1905. It may be that Cochems merely enjoyed the benefits of a good publicity agent a generation before the word 'flack' was coined.
The only known expert witness to the passing offenses of both Stagg's and Cochems' 1906 squads was Lt. Hackett, who officiated games involving both teams. His verdict, as contemporaneously reported by Wray, was that St. Louis' passing game was different and superior to anything else he had seen that season.
Cochems' own star, Bradbury Robinson, also disputed Cochems' claim to be the developer of the forward pass. In a 1940 letter to Ed Wray, Robinson wrote :
The story of the beginning and development of the forward pass does not reside with Eddie Cochems but with myself. Strange as it may seem I began the development of the forward pass in [1904] at Wisconsin university before I ever came to St. Louis. I anticipated that it would be introduced into the rules because of the efforts Theodore Roosevelt as president was making to tone down the game and make it more spectacular. ... Mr. Cochems' connection with this development only occurred in 1906, in Wisconsin, where the St. Louis university squad had gone for early training.
In a 2006 feature story on the 100th anniversary of the forward pass, St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Vahe Gregorian staked out a middle ground, noting, "While Cochems was the first to harness the potential of the newly legalized pass, he hardly was its architect or inventor."
Impact of the Rockne legend
Despite Cochems' contribution to football, his story was long the stuff of trivia. Years passed and a generation of first-hand observers died. They were replaced by generations influenced by the popular 1940 film Knute Rockne, All American in which Notre Dame's Knute Rockne was portrayed as the originator of the forward pass.
Another factor that may have contributed to Cochems' story fading from the public's memory was the decision of St. Louis University to discontinue intercollegiate football in 1949.
The New York Times columnist Arthur Daley, the first sportswriter to win the Pulitzer Prize, wrote in 1949 that Rockne and Gus Dorais, "caught a much larger share of immortality than they actually deserve, including credit for inventing the forward pass. That, of course, belongs to Eddie Cochems of St. Louis."
In 1952, Dorais himself tried to set the record straight (as Rockne had more than 20 years earlier), telling the United Press that "Eddie Cochems of the St. Louis University team of 1906-07-08 deserves the full credit."
Tampa Bay newspaper columnist Bob Driver wrote in 2006, "Cochems' name is mostly a footnote in football history, despite his achievements as the forward-pass pioneer." Driver concluded his column writing, "So there you have it, sports fans – a quickie history of the forward pass. Feel free to clip this column and keep it with you. It could help you win a bet, next time you encounter a sports know-it-all who believes the Knute Rockne movie version."
Honors and recognition
Honors and recognition of Cochems' accomplishments have been slow coming. Cochems was twice nominated to the College Football Hall of Fame, the last time in 1965, but was not elected. Neither was Robinson. In 1967, former St. Louis University publicity director Philip Dynan wrote in his article, "Father of the Forward Pass", that "it's about time that somebody voted Edward B. Cochems into the Football Hall of Fame." But it never happened. Nor has he been inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
Even at St. Louis University, Cochems was not inducted into the St. Louis Billiken Hall of Fame until 1994, 18 years after it was established in 1976. He was inducted into the University of Wisconsin Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Madison Sports Hall of Fame in 1968.
In December 1999, Cochems was ranked 29th in Sports Illustrated'''s list of the 50 greatest sports figures in Wisconsin history.
Since 1994, the St. Louis-Tom Lombardo Chapter of the National Football Foundation has recognized "Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football" with the Eddie Cochems Award.
In 2010, Complex magazine ranked Cochems' 1906 St. Louis squad 38th among "The 50 Most Badass College Football Teams" in history. Complex said it chose the teams based on "style, guts, amazing plays, and players and coaches that did things that just hadn't been done before."
In 2011, Amy Lamare, writing on Bleacher Report'', named St. Louis' 1906 game at Carroll College one of "The 50 Most Historically Significant Games in College Football."
Head coaching record
Football
See also
History of American football
References
External links
1877 births
1953 deaths
19th-century players of American football
American football ends
American football halfbacks
Sports inventors and innovators
Clemson Tigers football coaches
Maine Black Bears football coaches
North Dakota State Bison football coaches
Saint Louis Billikens football coaches
Saint Louis Billikens baseball coaches
Wisconsin Badgers baseball players
Wisconsin Badgers football coaches
Wisconsin Badgers football players
Twin people from the United States
Twin sportspeople
Sportspeople from Madison, Wisconsin
People from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
Players of American football from Wisconsin
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Mining in Afghanistan was controlled by the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, prior to the August 15th takeover by the Taliban. It is headquartered in Kabul with regional offices in other parts of the country. Afghanistan has over 1,400 mineral fields, containing barite, chromite, coal, copper, gold, iron ore, lead, natural gas, petroleum, precious and semi-precious stones, salt, sulfur, lithium, talc, and zinc, among many other minerals. Gemstones include high-quality emerald, lapis lazuli, red garnet and ruby. According to a joint study by The Pentagon and the United States Geological Survey, Afghanistan has an estimated US$1 trillion of untapped minerals.
There are six lapis mines in Afghanistan, the largest being located in Badakhshan province. There are around 12 copper mines in the country, including the Aynak copper deposit located in Logar province. Afghanistan's significance from an energy standpoint stems from its geographical position as a transit route for oil, natural gas, and electricity exports from Central Asia to South Asia and the Arabian Sea. This potential includes the construction of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline gas pipeline. The first Afghan oil production began in late 2012.
Overview
It is estimated that forty million years ago the tectonic plates of India-Europe, Asia and Africa collided in a massive upheaval. This upheaval created the region of towering mountains that now includes Afghanistan. This diverse geological foundation has resulted in a significant mineral heritage with over 1,400 mineral occurrences recorded to date, including gold, copper, lithium, uranium, iron ore, cobalt, natural gas and oil. Afghanistan's resources could make it one of the richest mining regions in the world.
Afghanistan has large untapped energy and mineral resources, which have great potential to contribute to the country's economic development and growth. The major mineral resources include chromium, copper, gold, iron ore, lead and zinc, lithium, marble, precious and semiprecious stones, sulfur and talc among many other minerals. The energy resources consist of natural gas and petroleum. The government was working to introduce new mineral and hydrocarbon laws that would meet international standards of governance.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the British geological survey were doing resource estimation work in the country. Prior to that work, Afghanistan's exploration activity had been conducted by geologists from the Soviet Union who left good-quality geologic records that indicate significant mineral potential. Resource development would require improvements in the infrastructure and security in Afghanistan. The government had awarded contracts to develop the Aynak copper project and the Hajigak iron ore project; in addition, the government could offer tenders for new exploration, including exploration of copper at Balkhab, gold at Badakhshan, gemstones and lithium at nuristan, and oil and gas at sheberghan.
The Ministry of Mines drew up its first business reform plan in a bid to create a more accountable and transparent mining industry. Afghanistan joined the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative as a candidate country. It was expected that after 5 years, the contribution of royalties from mineral production to the revenues of the government would be at least $1.2 billion per year, and that after 15 years, the contribution would increase to $3.5 billion per year. Afghanistan has no local ownership requirements and its Constitution does not allow for nationalization. The 20% corporate tax rate was the lowest in the region.
Afghanistan's mining industry was at a primitive artisanal stage of development; the operations were all low scale and output was supplied to local and regional markets. The government considered development of the country's mineral resources to be a priority for economic growth, including development of the industrial mineral resources (such as gravel, sand, and limestone for cement) for use by the domestic construction industry. Investment in infrastructure and transportation projects for mining was a critical aspect of developing the mining industry.
The government completed Afghanistan's first railway with an investment of $170 million in 2010. The 76-kilometer (km) route link Mazar-i-Sharif to the extensive rail networks in Uzbekistan. The new route would allow Afghan exporters to transport minerals and other goods into Europe. China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) is building a railroad to transport copper ore in Afghanistan from Logar to Kabul.
Owing to the lack of mineral production data reported by the miners, information about Afghanistan's mining activities was not readily available, but they appeared to be limited in scope. Production of Barite was estimated by the USGS to be about 2,000 metric tons; chromite, 6,000 tons; and natural gas liquids, 45,000 barrels. In the process of reconstruction and infrastructure development, output of construction minerals was estimated to have increased to meet the domestic requirements. Production of cement increased by 13% compared with that of 2009.
Privatization of Afghanistan's state-owned companies, which controlled many of the country's mineral resources, was ongoing but not complete. Investment in the mining sector by private domestic companies and foreign investors was encouraged by the government, which had offered the first contract for development of the Aynak copper project to two Chinese companies in 2007. The government also issued the tenders for the development of the hajigak iron ore project in 2009 and tenders for oil and gas exploration in 2010. The Ministry of Mines is involved in the exploration for and development, exploitation, and processing of minerals and hydrocarbons. The Ministry is also responsible for protecting the ownership and regulating the transportation and marketing of mineral resources in accordance with the country's new laws. Regulations to clarify the country's environmental laws were scheduled for adoption in 2010.
History
The last mining boom in Afghanistan was over 2,000 years ago in the era of Alexander the Great, when gold, silver and precious stones were routinely mined. Geologists have known of the extent of the mineral wealth for over a century, as a result of surveys done by the British and Russians. An American company was offered a mining concession over the entire country in the 1930s but turned it down. Despite this historical knowledge, global interest was only really boosted in 2010 when the Pentagon commissioned a report from the US Geological Survey (USGS).
Historical mining concentrated mostly on precious stone production, with some of the oldest known mines in the world believed to have been established in Afghanistan. Lapis lazuli was being mined in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan as early as 8000 BC. In ancient Egypt, lapis lazuli was a favorite stone for amulets and ornaments such as scarabs and was used in Egypt's pyramids; it was also used in ancient Mesopotamia by the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians for seals and at neolithic burials in Mehrgarh. During the height of the Indus valley civilization in about 2000 BC, the Harappan colony now known as Shortugai was established near the lapis mines. Lapis jewelry has been found at excavations of the Predynastic Egyptian site Naqada (3300–3100 BC), and powdered lapis was used as eyeshadow by Cleopatra. In ancient Mesopotamia, Lapis artifacts can be found in great abundance, with many notable examples having been excavated at the Royal Cemetery of Ur (2600-2500 BC).
The mine of Aynak's copper has more than 2,000 years of history, from the coins and the tools that were found there. The gold of Zarkashan has more than 2,000 years of history in Ghazni Province.
Afghanistan's ruby/spinel mines were mentioned in the Arabic writings of many early travellers, including Istakhri (951 AD), Ibn Haukal (978 AD), al-Ta'Alibi (961–1038 AD), al-Muqaddasi (ca 10th century), al-Biruni (b. 973; d. ca 1050 AD), Teifaschi (1240 AD), and Ibn Battuta (1325–1354 AD).
The British Empire first initiated resource assessments in Afghanistan in the early nineteenth century as they searched through pioneering exploration and military escapades for countries to dominate as markets and trading partners. From the time of their first geological mapping and mineral resource assessments in Afghanistan, and on into the twentieth century, the British maintained a comprehensive interest in resources of Afghanistan. This was done while also improving their military intelligence on resources and topographic detail that would be needed in the event of any unrest in the machinations of their Great Game face-off against the Russian Empire, and as long as they could maintain their British Raj (rule) of the Indian subcontinent. A number of other nationalities (German, French, Russian) also looked at geology and resources in the country from time to time but nothing much seemed to come of their explorations. Following the third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, Afghanistan won its independence from diplomatic domination by the British and it was not long after that a Soviet publication on mineral "riches" first appeared, published by a man who later came to be revered as an early Russian ‘father’ of geologic studies. Nevertheless, in spite of early attempts by the government of Afghanistan to entice Americans to become engaged in resource discovery and extraction in the country, distance from market, economic concerns, and looming worries about World War II caused rejection of the overtures, much to the discomfiture of the government of Afghanistan. In spite of a number of discoveries by the American geologist Fox (1943) and others, post-war assessment by an American geographer concluded shortsightedly that there were no useful resources in Afghanistan about which there should be any diplomatic concern.
With its attention on resources accordingly diverted elsewhere for decades to come, the US Department of State thus quite missed the resource ball when in the 1960s and 1970s, as many as ~250 Soviet geoscientists went to work mapping geology in the country while only one American geologist (John Shroder) was in the country, plus a few visiting geology attachés from the US Embassy and USGS seismic specialists who visited from time to time. The resulting Soviet collaboration with the Afghanistan Geological Survey detailed a wide store of mineral resources in the country.
The result of this Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was that the neighboring USSR was able to fairly easily sidestep or ignore developing resources in Afghanistan until conditions were more to its liking as it consolidated its preeminent position in the country, ultimately leading to its invasion in 1979. With its already dominant roles in the Afghanistan Cartographic Institute, the Afghanistan Geological Survey, and many other ministries, the USSR was in a position in the early 1980s to completely take over all resource extraction in Afghanistan. Indeed, they did pump much natural gas across the northern border of the Amu Darya into the USSR where the gauges to measure delivered volumes were located, and plans were made for development of other resources. In addition, the Aynak copper deposit near Kabul was investigated in detail and a smelter scheduled for installation in the mid 1980s.
In an interesting sidelight of these times in the early 1980s, a Soviet-Afghan convoy from Aynak was assaulted by the Mujahideen and the captured documents that were sent to co-author Shroder by British sources proved that the Aynak copper lode was one of the largest in the world, as proved by a plethora of kilometer-deep boreholes that allowed the Soviets to sample the deposit extensively. The increasing resistance of the Afghan people and the Mujahideen, in the final cumulative battles of the Cold War, precluded significant further development of any resources at that time. Instead the Soviet withdrawal in defeat occurred in 1988-89. The subsequent invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and coalition troops in 2001 began a new phase in the history of Afghanistan, as many old resource projects were assessed again, and new ones were initiated.
In 2001, the September 11 attacks in New York led to the United States invasion of Afghanistan. According to Mark Lander and James Risen, in 2007 U.S government sent geologist to explore the mining potential in Afghanistan. Using old Soviet maps of mining location, America created a more precise map of mineral locations. Former President Trump had agreed to remain in Afghanistan to help mine for minerals because he believed it will be a "win-win" for both countries.
Legal framework
A new mining law was passed in 2006 and as of 2006 regulations were being developed to provide the framework for more formal exploration for and mining of minerals. The process of applying for mineral rights was also being revised as of 2006. All minerals located on or under the surface are the exclusive property of the Government, except for hydrocarbons and water, which are regulated under separate laws. The principal role of the Government with respect to minerals is to promote the efficient development of the mineral industry by the private sector. The Ministry of Mines and Industries is responsible for the administration and implementation of the Mining Law. The Law provides investment security to the holder of a mineral right. The Government cannot expropriate mineral rights without adequate compensation in accordance with international norms. The Law also gives the mineral royalty rates, which range from 5% of gross revenue for industrial minerals to up to 10% for gemstones. Other changes in Government policy in 2006 included the legalization of the gemstone trade, Government control of the gemstone industry, and encouragement of investment in mining.<ref name=usgs>Kuo, Chin S. "The Mineral Industry of Afghanistan". 2006 Minerals Yearbook. U.S. Geological Survey (September 2007). This article incorporates text from this U.S. government source, which is in the public domain.</ref>
Mining locations
Badakhshan Province: Badakhshan Gold, gemstones, lapis lazuli.
Baghlan Province: Baghlan clay and gypsum, Dudkash industrial minerals
Balkh Province: oil.
Bamyan Province: Hajigak Mine (iron oxide).
Daykundi Province: tin and tungsten
Farah Province in the west: copper, lithium;
Ghazni Province: Dashti Nawar lithium salts; Zarkashan Mine(copper, gold);.
Ghor Province: Karnak-Kanjar mercury, Nalbandon lead and zinc
Helmand Province: Khanneshin carbonatite, gold, rare-earth elements, possible uranium reserves; Chagai Hills travertine, copper and gold.
Herat Province: Shaida Copper Mine Dusar tin, Tourmaline tin, Herat barite and limestone
Jowzjan Province: Oil and Gas
Kabul Province: Jegdalek, Surobi District (gemstones).
Kandahar Province: copper, cement
Kapisa Province: copper
Kunduz Province: Kunduz celestite
Logar Province: copper (Mes Aynak).
Nangarhar Province: elbaite, Ghunday Achin magnesite and talc.
Nimroz Province: Godzareh (Gaudi Zireh) lithium salts.
Nuristan Province: Nuristan pegmatites and gemstones.
Panjshir Province: Panjshir Valley gemstones e.g. emerald.
Paktika Province: Katawaz gold and Oil
Samangan Province: Aybak (copper); Shabashak, Dara-I-Suf District (coking coal).
Sar-e Pol Province: Balkhab Copper Mine (world's largest deposit), Oil (Kashkari, Angot, etc.).
Takhar Province: Samti, Panj River Valley (gold), Evaporite.
Urozgan Province: Bakhud fluorite
Zabul Province: Kundalyan gold and copper.
Also the following places which have not, as yet, been positively located:
Southeastern Afghanistan: copper, at the Darband, and the Jawkhar prospects.
Anjir, Hasar, and Nooraba Valleys: gold
Commodities
Afghanistan has abundant non-fuel mineral resources, including both known and potential deposits of a wide variety of minerals ranging from copper, iron, and sulfur to bauxite, lithium, and rare-earth elements. It was announced in 2010 that about $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits were identified in Afghanistan,"Report: US finds mineral riches in Afghanistan" enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy. According to other reports the total mineral riches of Afghanistan may be worth over $3 trillion US dollars. "The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world". Ghazni Province may hold the world's largest lithium reserves. The deposits were described in the USGS report on Afghanistan in 2007.David Sirota, "Sorry, Trillions in Unmined Mineral Wealth Is Not a Reason to Keep Occupying Afghanistan," Alternet, 18 June 2010 (accessed 25 October 2012) Afghan President Hamid Karzai remarked "Whereas Saudi Arabia is the oil capital of the world, Afghanistan will be the lithium capital of the world.") Afghanistan invited 200 global companies for the development of its mines.
Copper
No copper mines were active in the country in 2006. In the past, copper had been mined from Herat Province and Farah Province in the west, Kapisa Province in the east, and Kandahar Province and Zabul Province in the south. As of 2006, interest was focused on the Aynak, the Darband, and the Jawkhar prospects in southeastern Afghanistan. Copper mineralization at Aynak in Logar Province was stratabound and characterized by bornite and chalcopyrite disseminated in dolomite marble and quartz-biotite-dolomite schists of the Loy Khwar Formation. Although a resource of 240 million metric tons at a grade of 2.3% copper had been reported, a number of small ore lenses were potentially not practically and economically minable. Open pit and underground mining would be needed to exploit the main ore body, and other infrastructure problems, such as inadequate power and water, were also likely. The new (2005) Mining Law might favor the development of the deposit by using public tenders. The Government issued a public tender for the deposit in 2006, and expected the granting of concessions in February 2007. Nine mining companies from Australia, China, India, and the United States were interested in the prospect.
China Metallurgical Group won the bidding for a copper mining project in Aybak, Samangan, Afghanistan. The bidding process has been criticized by rival Canadian and United States companies alleging corruption and questioning the Chinese company's commitment to the Afghan people.
In 2007, a 30-year lease was granted for the development of a copper mine at Mes Aynak in Logar Province to the China Metallurgical Group for $3 billion, making it the biggest foreign investment and private business venture in Afghanistan's history. It is believed to contain the second-largest reserves of copper ore in the world and the deposits are estimated to be worth up to $88 billion. It is also the site of one of Afghanistan's most important archaeological sites and, although there are desperate efforts being made to save as much as possible, the main Buddhist monastery and other remains are due to be bulldozed to make way for the mine.
Several new mineral-rich sites, with estimated deposits of about $250 billion, had been found in six other provinces. Launched in 2006, a US Geological Survey (USGS), jointly conducted with the Ministry of Mines, was completed last year. The survey covers 30 percent of the country. "The survey provides credible information on mines in 28 different parts of Afghanistan," Wahidullah Shahrani told reporters.
It showed the world's largest copper deposits existed in Balkhab district of Sar-e-Pol. The copper mine was discovered near a river, an area which might hold gold reserves as well. The government launched tenders in late 2011 for the Balkhab copper deposit, which had reserves of about 45 Mt of copper. Citing the report, an Afghan government minister said two new copper mines in Logar Province and Herat Province provinces had been discovered. The value of the Logar pit, not the Ainak mine, is estimated at $43 billion. Copper and gold mines worth of $30 billion were discovered in the Zarkasho area of Ghazni and lithium pits of $20 billion in Farah and Nimroz provinces, Shahwani said.
A deposit of beryllium, which is lighter than aluminum and stronger than steel used in airplanes, helicopters, ships, missiles, and space craft, has been found in the Khanashin district of southern Helmand province. The reserves are estimated at $88 billion.
Coal
Afghanistan has rich reserves of coking coal, coal is primarily located within a Jurassic belt from the northern provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan through the center of the country and towards the west in Herat, according to Afghan mines ministry.
In 2014 however, the U.S. Department of Labor has issued a List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor in which Afghanistan appeared to be one of the 74 countries with noticeable incidence of child labor in the coal mining field.
Gemstones
Afghanistan is known to have exploited its precious and semi-precious gemstone deposits. These deposits include aquamarine, emerald and other varieties of beryl, fluorite, garnet, kunzite, ruby, sapphire, lapis lazuli, topaz, tourmaline, varieties of quartz, and caribbean calcite. Corundum deposits (sapphire and ruby) in the country are largely exhausted, and very little gem quality material is found. The four main gemstone-producing areas are those of Badakhshan, Jegdalek, Nuristan, and the Panjshir Valley. Artisanal mining of gemstones in the country used primitive methods. Some gemstones were exported illicitly, mostly to India (which was the world's leading import market for colored gemstones and an outlet for higher quality gems) and to the domestic neighboring Pakistan market.
Gold
As of 2006, gold was mined from the Samti placer deposit in Takhar Province in the north by groups of artisanal miners. Badakhshan Province also had occurrences of placer gold deposits. The deposits were found on the western flanks of the mountains in alluvium or alluvial fan in several river valleys, particularly in the Anjir, the Hasar, the Nooraba, and the Panj Valleys. The Samti deposit is located in the Panj River Valley and was estimated to contain between 20 and 25 metric tons of gold. The southern regions of Afghanistan is believed to contain large gold deposits, particularly the Helmand Province. There is an estimated $50 billion in gold and copper deposits in Ghazni province.
The Afghan government signed a deal with Afghan Krystal natural Resources Co. (a local company) to invest up to $50 million in the Qara Zaghan Mine in northern Baghlan Province. Qara Zaghan was the country’s second gold mine, and production there was planned to begin by 2013. The mine’s gold reserves were not yet known, but the company intended to spend the next 2 years exploring the site. Investors from Indonesia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States were backing the project. The first gold mine was being developed by Westland general trading LLC of the United Arab Emirates at Nor Aaba near the border with Tajikistan in northern Takhar Province. The mine was expected to provide $4 million to $5 million per year in royalties to the government.
Iron ore
The best known and largest iron oxide deposit in Afghanistan is located at Hajigak in Bamyan Province. The deposit itself stretches over 32 km and contains 16 separate zones, up to 5 km in length, 380 m wide and extending 550 m down dip, seven of which have been studied in detail. The ore occurs in both primary and oxidized states. The primary ore accounts for 80% of the deposit and consists of magnetite, pyrite and minor chalcopyrite. The remaining 20% is oxidized and consists of three hematitic ore types. The deposit remained unmined in 2006. The presence of coking coal nearby at Shabashak in the Dar-l-Suf District and large iron ore resources made the deposit viable for future development of an Afghan steel industry. Open pit mining and blast furnace smelting operations were envisioned by an early feasibility study. The Hajigak also includes the unusual niobium, a soft metal used in the production of superconductors.
Lithium
Lithium is a vital metal that is mostly used in the manufacture of rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops and electric cars. It is speculated that Afghanistan has plenty of lithium. The country's lithium deposits occur in dry lake beds in the form of lithium chloride; they are located in the western Province of Herat and Nimroz and in the central east Province of Ghazni. The geologic setting is similar to those found in Bolivia and Chile. The deposits are also found in hard rock in the form of spodumene in pegmatites in the north-eastern Provinces of Badakhshan, Nangarhar, Nuristan, and Uruzgan. A pegmatite in the Hindu Kush Mountains in central Afghanistan was reported to contain 20% to 30% spodumene.
Marble
Afghanistan also has considerable amount of marble in different parts of the country. There are a number of marble factories in Herat. According to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, current Afghan marble exports are estimated at $15 million per year. With improved extraction, processing, infrastructure, and investment, the industry has the potential to grow into a $450 million per year business.
Petroleum and natural gas
Afghanistan has 1.8 billion barrels of oil between Balkh and Jawzjan Province in the north of the country, discovered in 2010. This is an enormous amount for a nation that only consumes 5,000 bbl/day. The United States Geological Survey and the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Industry jointly assessed the oil and natural gas resources in northern Afghanistan. The estimated mean volumes of undiscovered petroleum were 1,596 million barrels (Mbbl) of crude oil, 444 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and 562 Mbbl of natural gas liquids. Most of the undiscovered crude oil occurs in the Afghan-Tajik Basin and most of the undiscovered natural gas is located in the Amu Darya Basin. These two basins within Afghanistan encompass areas of approximately 515,000 square kilometers.
In December 2011, Afghanistan signed an oil exploration contract with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for the development of three oil fields along the Amu Darya river. In 2012 it was projected Afghanistan woukd have its first oil refineries within the next three years, after which it will receive 70 percent of the profits from the sale of the oil and natural gas. CNPC began Afghan oil production in October 2012, extracting 1.5 million barrels of oil annually.China's CNPC begins oil production in Afghanistan, by Hamid Shalizi. October 21, 2012.
Rare-earth elements
According to a September 2011 US Geological Survey estimate, the Khanashin carbonatites in southern Helmand Province have an estimated 1 million metric tonnes of rare-earth elements at a potentially useful concentration in the rock, but of unknown economic value. Regina Dubey, Acting Director for the Department of Defence Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO)'' stated that "this is just one more piece of evidence that Afghanistan's mineral sector has a bright future."
Uranium
The Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan is believed to possess uranium reserves, according to Afghan Ministry of Mines.
See also
List of places in Afghanistan
References
Further reading
External links
2010 Mineral Discovery - Information and petition to help the Afghans fight corruption in this discovery.
Google Earth Map of the oil and gas infrastructure
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Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing (12 September 1956 – 1 April 2003) was a Hong Kong singer and actor. Throughout a 26-year career from 1977 until his death, Cheung released over 40 music albums and acted in 56 films. He was one of the most prominent pioneers that shaped the identity of Cantopop during the 1980s and became known for his flamboyant, often outrageous stage appearance. His venture into acting in the 1990s was recognised for his portrayal of queer characters in a then-conservative film industry. His career was marked with both praise and criticism, with numerous public discussions focusing on his sexual orientation and androgynous persona.
Born Cheung Fat-chung in Kowloon, British Hong Kong, Cheung studied in England from the age of 12 until returning to Hong Kong in 1976 to pursue a career in show business. He achieved wide popularity with his 1984 self-titled album and its single "Monica", whose upbeat dance production introduced a new popular trend to Cantopop in addition to the contemporary pool of sentimental ballads. Cheung's continued success with a string of hit albums in the mid- and late-1980s, most notably 1987 best-seller Summer Romance, won him numerous awards, including Most Popular Male Artist at the 1988 and 1989 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards. In addition to music, Cheung had breakthrough film roles as a disillusioned teenager in Nomad (1982) and as a police officer torn between justice and brotherhood in A Better Tomorrow (1986). He announced his "retirement" from music and emigrated to Canada in 1989, but remained active in his burgeoning acting career.
Cheung achieved widespread recognition as an actor in the 1990s. He played a womaniser longing for the return of his estranged mother in Days of Being Wild (1990), which won him Best Actor at the 1991 Hong Kong Film Awards. His role as a homosexual Peking opera actor in Farewell My Concubine (1993) catapulted him to prominence in the western world. Cheung's reputation as a queer celebrity consolidated with his role in the 1997 drama Happy Together, a film explicitly depicting a homosexual male relationship. His comeback as a recording artist in the late 1990s, particularly with his 1996 album Red, was noted for sonic experimentation and extravagant, graphic imagery. He was awarded the Golden Needle Award, the highest distinction of the RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards, in 1999. In 2000, he was honoured as "Asia's Biggest Superstar" at the CCTV/MTV Music Honours in mainland China. Cheung committed suicide by jumping off the 24th floor of the hotel Mandarin Oriental on 1 April 2003, having been diagnosed with severe clinical depression.
Early life
Cheung was born Cheung Fat-chung in Kowloon, British Hong Kong, the youngest of 10 children in a middle-class Hakka family. His father, Cheung Wut-hoi, was a well-known tailor specialised in suits whose customers included Western celebrities such as film director Alfred Hitchcock and actors Marlon Brando and Cary Grant. Despite his father's reputation in the fashion industry, Cheung was uninspired by the profession. Cheung told many interviewers that he had an unhappy childhood, feeling emotionally estranged from his father and siblings, and frequently witnessing arguments and fights in the household. He felt "depressed sometimes" and longed for affection from his parents who were absent from home most of the time in his childhood. His father's abusive treatment of his mother had a lasting effect on Cheung's perspectives on marriage. When Cheung's father married another woman, his emotional life further deteriorated. He was brought up by his grandmother, whom he was very close with. Cheung summed up his upbringing as a "silent resentment" with "nothing worth remembering", except for the death of his grandmother when he was in primary school, which was the "one thing that I do remember about my childhood."
Cheung attended Rosaryhill School for secondary education in Hong Kong and, at age 12, enrolled at Norwich School in England. During his time at Rosaryhill, Cheung was academically poor but excelled in the English language. He discovered a newfound interest in Western films and immersed himself in music, studying the original soundtrack of Romeo and Juliet. When in England, he recalled that there were "racial problems", but managed to make friends. During weekends, he worked as a bartender and would sometimes do amateur singing at his relatives' restaurant in Southend-on-Sea. He came across the film Gone with the Wind and chose Leslie as his English name inspired by the actor Leslie Howard, feeling that "The name can be a man's or woman's, it's very unisex." Cheung attended the University of Leeds, where he studied textile management. After one year of study, in 1976, he returned to Hong Kong when his father became paralyzed on one side of the body after a stroke. As the father wanted all of his children to be at home, Cheung abandoned his study and became a salesman for Levi's for a living. Cheung recalled that during this time, "I had no plans; there I was, feeling like I was hanging in the middle of nowhere."
Career
Beginnings
Upon returning to Hong Kong, Cheung went back to high school as a mature student and formed a band, where he was the lead singer, with his classmates. In May 1977, the band members signed up individually for Rediffusion Television (RTV)'s Asian Singing Contest. Only Cheung remained until the final round of the Hong Kong division, where he finished as the first runner-up with a rendition of "American Pie". He proceeded to the pan-Asian division, finishing fifth. Soon after the competition, RTV offered Cheung a three-year contract as a second-rate actor for RTV. He also signed with Polydor Records with hopes of releasing music albums.
Cheung's career in show business did not take off immediately. His first film role was in Erotic Dream of the Red Chamber (, 1978), a softcore porn production that features his bare buttocks. His first two albums were solely recorded in English, and his third album, Lover's Arrow (, 1979) was recorded in Cantonese. The albums failed commercially, and critics lambasted Cheung's voice as "chicken-like". Cheung's first public performance at the 1977 Hong Kong Pop Folk Music Festival was booed off the stage by the audience. He described his early days into show business as "full of uncertainty ... I remember well that my singing career at the early stage was like 'a person running into a rock', full of despair and obstacles." Seeing little potential in Cheung, Polydor allowed him to depart on his own terms.
1982–1989: Cantopop success and film crossover
Cheung signed with Capital Artists, a record label closely associated with the then-dominant television network TVB, in 1982. His first hit single, "The Wind Blows On" (; 1982), is a cover version of Momoe Yamaguchi's Japanese single "The Other Side of Goodbye" . The song was successful on charts, revitalising Cheung's image as a Cantopop singer. The titular album was Cheung's first to be certified gold by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) Hong Kong. His second album with Capital, Craziness (, 1983), is a compilation of songs he recorded for TVB dramas. The album was also a success, receiving a gold certification from the IFPI Hong Kong. He continued his movie crossover with roles mostly in teenage films, and earned his first major recognition for starring in Nomad (1982). While Cheung had already been a well-known actor with likeable personae in TVB productions, his role as a disillusioned teenager in Nomad foresaw his future reputation as an icon of rebel. The role garnered Cheung a nomination for Best Actor at the 1983 Hong Kong Film Awards.
The year 1984 was when Cheung achieved mass stardom. He released the hit single "Monica", a cover of the single by Japanese singer Kōji Kikkawa. The song topped charts in Hong Kong and was one of the 10 gold-certified songs honoured at TVB's 1984 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards and the 1984 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards. The song's upbeat dance production introduced a new musical trend to Cantopop, in addition to the traditional sentimental ballads that had dominated the scene. Cheung's 1984 self-titled album, which included "Monica", was his first to be certified platinum by the IFPI Hong Kong and sold over 200,000 copies. He starred in the TVB drama Once Upon an Ordinary Girl () and the film Behind the Yellow Line. In the latter, he co-starred with actress Maggie Cheung and singer-actress Anita Mui. Both productions were commercially successful and put Cheung into the limelight as a prominent entertainer. As Cheung's fame expanded, the media began to pit him against fellow singer-actor Alan Tam, as the two were the most successful male Cantopop singers at the moment. The publicised so-called rivalry contributed to Cantopop's booming sales and lasted until the end of the 1980s.
Cheung's next albums with Capital were met with similar success. For Your Heart Only (, 1985) yielded the hit single "Wind Wind" (), which was among the 10 gold-certified songs honoured at both TVB's Jade Solid Gold and RTHK Top 10 awards. The album also included songs Cheung recorded for TVB dramas, propelling his image as a romantic male lead. His 1986 single "Who Feels the Same?" () won the Gold Song Gold Award, the distinction for the most popular song of the year, at TVB's Jade Solid Gold Awards. With this achievement, Cheung became an arguably undisputed royalty of Cantopop. After the release of "Who Feels the Same?", he left Capital and joined Cinepoly Records. A turning point in his burgeoning acting career was in the John Woo-directed 1986 crime-action A Better Tomorrow, in which he co-starred with Ti Lung and Chow Yun-fat. He played a youthful and impulsive police officer torn between justice and his criminal brother.
Cheung's career ascended to a new peak in 1987, when he released his first album under Cinepoly, Summer Romance. The album was the best-selling Cantopop release of the year, earning seven times platinum certification from the IFPI Hong Kong and sold over 350,000 copies. Its lead single, "Sleepless Night" (), won the Gold Song Gold Award at the 1987 Jade Solid Gold Awards. The next two albums, Virgin Snow and Hot Summer, both were released in 1988 and sold well, receiving gold and platinum certifications from the IFPI Hong Kong. He also had starring roles in the films A Chinese Ghost Story and Rouge. The performance of Cheung and his co-star Anita Mui in Rouge consolidated the pair's reputation as the top Hong Kong entertainers. Yiu-wai Chu, author of the book Hong Kong Cantopop: A Concise History (2017), noted that Cheung and Mui formed an "unprecedented" chemistry showcasing "mystic power of charisma", not only in films but also on stage performances together. The two were also close friends in real life.
Cheung embarked on a 23-date tour at the Hong Kong Coliseum in mid-1988, sponsored by Pepsi. The tour was a sold-out and accumulated over 250,000 spectators. He also held several shows catering to the Chinese community in North America, visiting Atlantic City, Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver. In the wake of the intense political atmosphere in mainland China in the late 1980s, which would culminate in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, successful Cantopop singers announced public withdrawal from the music industry and emigrated to western countries. Cheung followed suit, announcing his "retirement" from Cantopop and emigrating to Vancouver, Canada in 1989. Prior to his retirement, Cheung released three further albums under Cinepoly—Leslie '89, Salute, Final Encounter—all of which received platinum certifications from the IFPI Hong Kong. He won Most Popular Male Artist twice, at the 1988 and 1989 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards. His "farewell concert tour", in support of the album Final Encounter, ran for 33 consecutive sold-out shows at the Hong Kong Coliseum. Cheung donated profits of his 1989 album Salute to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, which was named the Leslie Cheung Memorial Scholarship after his death.
1990–1995: Music hiatus and major film roles
In addition to music, Cheung had his breakthrough movie role in the crime-action A Better Tomorrow (1986), which would pave the way for his upcoming career in cinema. Cheung announced his "retirement" and emigrated to Canada in 1989, in the aftermath of the handover of Hong Kong, but subsequently returned to show business in 1990.
He also won Best Actor at the 1994 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards in the comedy-drama Ashes of Time (1994).
The turning point in Cheung's acting career came in 1986 with his starring role in John Woo's () A Better Tomorrow, which broke Hong Kong's box office record. In the following years Cheung was praised for his performances in films which found popularity with audiences worldwide, including A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), Rouge (1987), Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild (1991) and Farewell My Concubine (1993).
Although Cheung quit his career as a pop singer from 1989 to 1995, he continued his music career as a songwriter. He composed more than ten songs during that time. In 1993, he won Best Original Movie Song Award from Golden Horse Film Festival for the theme song Red Cheek, White Hair to the film The Bride with White Hair (as a film score composer). In 1995, he wrote all three theme songs for the film The Phantom Lover. As for songwriting, Cheung won four nominations for Best Original Movie Song Award at the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards and two nominations for Best Original Film Song at the Hong Kong Film Awards. In 1998, he was a member of the jury at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival.
1995–1999: Return to music
In 1995 Cheung signed a contract with Rock Records, returning to music as a singer. At the same year, he released his first post-"retirement" album, Beloved. Beloved achieved large market success with the award of IFPI Best Selling Album.
In 2001 Cheung collaborated with William Chang, the art director of Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild (1991), to make his music video Bewildered, about the intimacy between two gay men. Japanese ballet dancer Nishijima Kazuhiro played Cheung's lover in the video. The music video was demonized for advocating homosexuality and was banned by TVB, but Cheung refused to edit the scenes and censor himself.
2000–2003: Later years
Cheung's last concert tour was the Passion Tour, which took place in Hong Kong and overseas from 2000 to 2001. Cheung collaborated with fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier, transforming Cheung "From Angel to Devil" in four costumes: the Angel, the Pretty Boy, the Latin Lover, and the Devil – denoting cross-cultural drag and focusing on Cheung's androgyny and bisexuality. Although Passion Tour was acclaimed in Japan, Korea, and Canada for Cheung's glamour and dignity in using drag performance through Gaultier's costume designs, in Hong Kong it was received with disapproval. His final concert tour, the Passion Tour (2000–01), visited Asia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The tour broke attendance records throughout Asia, including a record for the first foreign artist to hold 16 concerts in Japan.
While Cheung could sell well over 200,000 copies for an album in his 1980s heyday, his later albums struggled to match the same success, only 50,000 copies each.
In 2011, CCTV commented the "Passion Tour" that from performance form, art concept, costume props and audience response, all represent the highest standard of Chinese concerts, no one has ever surpassed.
Personal life
In 1977, during the filming of the RTV television series Love Story, the then 20-year-old Cheung met and fell in love with his 17-year-old co-star, Teresa Mo (毛舜筠), and they got together after they finished the series. In 1979, Cheung proposed to Mo with flowers, but his sudden proposal startled her and she began to distance herself from him. Although Cheung and Teresa Mo eventually broke up after the proposal and briefly lost contact, they remained close friends after they had reunited for the 1992 film All's Well, Ends Well.
Cheung later went into a brief relationship with an actress , the younger sister of Michelle Yim, but they broke up in 1980, due to their incompatibly for each other's lifestyles.
Cheung and Ngai Sze-pui (), a Hong Kong model and actress whom he met on the set of ATV television series Agency 24, were in a relationship for two years from 1981 to 1983.
In 1984, at the house of Albert Yeung, Cheung met Cindy Yeung (楊諾詩), the youngest daughter of Albert Yeung who had recently returned from Boston. Cindy Yeung was also a fan of Cheung and was seven years younger than him. Cheung and Yeung went out on several dates until the latter returned to Boston. They continued their relationship through phone calls and letters, but would part ways in the following year, still remaining good friends. Cheung felt that if he had not been in the showbusiness, he could have already been married with children, like most of his friends.
In an interview in 1992, Cheung stated that "My mind is bisexual. It's easy for me to love a woman. It's also easy for me to love a man, too" and "I believe that a good actor would be androgynous, and ever changing."
He announced his same-sex relationship with his childhood friend Daffy Tong Hok-tak (唐鶴德) during a concert in 1997, earning him prestige in LGBT communities in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. His relationship with Daffy lasted until his death in 2003.
Cheung responded to questions regarding his love life: "In terms of lovers, I think I can be a better friend than a lover. Because I am a workaholic. To share my romance, that person has to compromise something." This statement was out during the interview following the release of the film Okinawa Rendez-vous in 2000.
In a 2001 interview with Time magazine, Cheung said: "It's more appropriate to say I'm bisexual. I've had girlfriends. When I was 22 or so, I asked my girlfriend Teresa Mo to marry me."
Citizenship
Leslie Cheung moved to Vancouver in 1990 and became a Canadian citizen by naturalization.
Philanthropy
Cheung was a supporter of several charities concerning children's welfare. He was a patron of the Children's Cancer Foundation, a charity that cares for young children with cancer and their families. Cheung donated HK$1 million (US$128,000) in 1996 and launched five sets of RED cards to help raise funds for the Children's Cancer Foundation.
He was the first Cantopop star to launch a charity fundraising at a concert. In 1996, although he rarely sang in public at that time, he sang three theme songs from his films to raise money for the elderly.
For his 1997 concert at the HK Coliseum, Cheung set up a collection booth for the RED Card charity. Donations of HK$100 or above could obtain a set of cards. Cheung said, "I will lead the way, so I donated HK$1,000,000 to Hong Kong children's cancer fund in my own name." The concert raised more than HK$800,000, to which Cheung and his friends added more than HK$100,000, and made up a million Hong Kong dollars to donate to the cancer fund.
He was also a patron of the End Child Sexual Abuse Foundation (ECSAF) (護苗基金), founded by veteran actress Josephine Siao ().
In 1999, at a party to raise relief funds in the aftermath of the Taiwan earthquake, Cheung participated in a fried rice tasting event. He donated HK$250,000 for a bowl of rice; this was matched by fan donations, bringing the total to HK$500,000.
In 2000, Sun Entertainment opened the "Star Second-hand Shop", where second-hand goods donated by celebrities were auctioned to raise money for the "Sun Love Fund". Leslie Cheung was known for his very good fashion sense and he was the first to donate three well-loved, carefully selected pieces to the auction. Leslie also donated his beloved badminton racket to IDclub Taiwan, to be auctioned to raise money for the children's cancer fund.
In 1999 and 2000, he appeared in TVB charity shows to help raise funds for ECSAF, in which he was appointed a goodwill ambassador in 2002.
In 2003, Cheung donated HK$100,000 to the Seedling protection fund, who were holding a large-scale charity night on the 12th of March. He told his party guests to give him cash instead of presents, then he donated all of the money that he received to the fund.
Death and legacy
Cheung died by suicide on 1 April 2003 at 6:43 pm (HKT). He leapt from the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, located in the Central district of Hong Kong Island. He left a suicide note saying that he had been suffering from depression. He was 46 years old.
As one of the most popular performers in Asia, Cheung's death broke the hearts of millions of his fans across Asia and shocked the Asian entertainment industry and Chinese community worldwide. The day after Cheung's death, his partner Daffy Tong confirmed that Cheung suffered from clinical depression and had been seeing Professor Felice Lieh Mak, a famous therapist, for treatment for almost a year. He also revealed that Cheung had previously attempted suicide in November 2002. Later at his funeral, Cheung's niece disclosed that her uncle had severe clinical depression and suffered much over the past year. He was buried in Po Fook Hill, Shatin.
Despite the risk of infection from SARS and the WHO's warning on traveling to Hong Kong, tens of thousands attended Cheung's memorial service, which was held for the public, on 7 April 2003, including celebrities and other fans, many from other parts of the world such as mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, the United States, and Canada. Cheung's funeral was held on 8 April 2003. For almost a month, Cheung's death dominated newspaper headlines in Hong Kong and his songs were constantly on the air. His final album, Everything Follows the Wind (), was released three months after his death.
Cheung's suicide note (translation):
In a 2012 interview, Cheung's eldest sister, Ophelia, stated Cheung was diagnosed with clinical depression caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. She said that reporters were frequently found outside of her brother's home which hampered his ability to get to his doctor's facility. Thus, he would come over to her house to consult with his doctor. He would ask his sister, "Why am I depressed? I have money and so many people love me." He was reluctant to take medication for his depression.
In 2013, Cheung's former music agent Florence Chan organised two memorial concerts entitled Miss You Much Leslie on 31 March and 1 April for the 10th anniversary of Cheung's death. Big names of the Hong Kong entertainment industry performed at the concert at Hong Kong Coliseum. In addition, in 2013, Cheung's fans from around the world made two million orizuru cranes for the Guinness World Record as a tribute to the anniversary.
On 12 September 2016, on what would have been Cheung's 60th birthday, over one thousand fans joined Florence Chan in the morning at Po Fook Hill Ancestral Hall (寶福山) for prayers. At night, Cheung's fans club, Red Mission organised "Leslie Cheung 60th Red Hot Birthday Party" to commemorate Cheung. It was an outdoor birthday party at Central Harbourfront Event Space with a big LED screen projecting Cheung's past video clips, concerts, songs and pictures. Eason Chan () as a member of Red Mission joined the party singing Cheung's song "4 season" (春夏秋冬) as a tribute to Cheung. In the same month, another fans club, United Leslie also celebrated the big day of this renowned star. United Leslie organised an exhibition and movie screening of Cheung's two selected movies in PMQ, Central of Hong Kong.
Struggling with Hong Kong media and social prejudice
Cheung is well known for his prominent roles portraying queer characters in Happy Together and Farewell My Concubine. A pair of red high heels Cheung wore during a performance of his song Red were described as "a top draw" at an exhibit on androgynous fashion in Hong Kong. Many media outlets focused primarily on arguing about his queer identity instead of on his artistic achievement in film and music. Before his death, Cheung mentioned in interviews that he had become depressed because of negative comments about gender-crossing in his Passion Tour concert. He had planned to retire from stage performance because of the strain of being a bisexual artist in Hong Kong, facing stigmatization, surveillance, and marginalization.
Asteroid
In 2018, 55383 Cheungkwokwing was named in memory of Leslie Cheung. The main-belt asteroid was discovered by Bill Yeung at the Desert Eagle Observatory in 2001.
Awards and nominations
RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards (十大中文金曲)
Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards (十大勁歌金曲頒獎典禮)
Other music awards
Hong Kong Film Awards
Golden Horse Awards
Other film awards
Ming Pao Power Academy Awards
Discography
Filmography
See also
Cinema of Hong Kong
Music of Hong Kong
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
Simon Broughton, Mark Ellingham, World Music Volume 2: Latin and North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, BBC Radio, 2000,
Kei Mori, "夢想之欠片 (Broken pieces of dreams)", Renga Shyobo Shinshya Co Ltd, Tokyo, Japan, 2004,
Chitose Shima, "Leslie Cheung Interview", All About Leslie, p25–40, Sangyo Henshu Center Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, 1999,
Chitose Shima, Time of Leslie Cheung, Sangyo Henshu Center Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, 2004,
City Entertainment Editor Committee, Leslie Cheung's Movie World 2 (1991–1995), City Entertainment, Hong Kong, 2006,
De Hui, Leslie Cheung's Movie Life I, II, Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, Shanghai, 2006, .
Helen Hok-Sze Leung, "In Queer Memory: Leslie Cheung (1956-2003)" In "Undercurrents Queer Culture and Postcolonial Hong Kong", UBC Press, Vancouver, 2008, p. 85 -105,
External links
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1956 births
2003 deaths
2003 suicides
20th-century Hong Kong male actors
20th-century Hong Kong male singers
21st-century Hong Kong male actors
21st-century Hong Kong male singers
Alumni of the University of Leeds
Ballad musicians
Bisexual male actors
Bisexual men
Bisexual musicians
Canadian male actors of Hong Kong descent
Canadian musicians of Hong Kong descent
Cantopop singers
Hong Kong emigrants to Canada
Hong Kong idols
Hong Kong male film actors
Hong Kong male singers
Hong Kong male television actors
Hong Kong Mandopop singers
Hong Kong people of Hakka descent
Hong Kong songwriters
LGBT musicians from Hong Kong
LGBT-related suicides
LGBT singers
Male actors from Vancouver
Musicians from Vancouver
Naturalized citizens of Canada
People educated at Norwich School
People from Kowloon
Suicides by jumping in Hong Kong
20th-century LGBT people
21st-century LGBT people
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Matt Fritchman (born December 1, 1975), better known by the pen name Matt Fraction, is an Eisner Award-winning American comic book writer, known for his work as the writer of The Invincible Iron Man, The Immortal Iron Fist, Uncanny X-Men, and Hawkeye for Marvel Comics; Casanova and Sex Criminals for Image Comics; and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen for DC Comics.
Early life
Matt Fraction was born December 1, 1975 in Chicago Heights, Illinois. As a child, he developed an affinity for telling stories, and he enjoyed reading comic books and strips. The first comic he remembers buying was Batman #316 (Oct. 1979), and he liked newspaper comics Peanuts and Doonesbury. He became a regular weekly comic-book reader around the time that the 1985–86 DC Comics storyline "Crisis on Infinite Earths" ended, but he found that storyline bizarre and impenetrable and gravitated toward Marvel Comics instead. Spider-Man became his favorite character, and he read other Marvel publications such as Star Wars and G.I. Joe.
In the late 1990s Fraction worked as an employee at the Charlotte, North Carolina-based comics retailer Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, and participated in the Warren Ellis Forum under the username "Matt Fraction".
Career
Fraction started in the comics industry by working for smaller publishers including AiT/Planet Lar and IDW Publishing, many of which employed people that he had met on the Warren Ellis Forum; as such, he continued using the "Fraction" name as it was the one under which he had built a reputation. He became known early in his career for his creator-owned work on The Five Fists of Science and Casanova, before taking on a number of assignments for Marvel Comics.
Fraction wrote two columns for Comic Book Resources: "Poplife" and "The Basement Tapes", the latter with Joe Casey.
Fraction teamed with Ed Brubaker for a run on Marvel's The Immortal Iron Fist. The pair re-teamed on Uncanny X-Men for a short time, after which Fraction wrote the series solo until leaving it in 2011. He wrote The Mighty Thor and The Invincible Iron Man, the latter of which led to his consulting work on the set of the film Iron Man 2 and writing the Iron Man 2 video game that tied into that film sequel.
In 2011 Fraction wrote the Fear Itself limited series, which was the central part of the crossover storyline of the same name. In December 2011 he revived the series The Defenders with artist Terry Dodson and in August 2012 he started a new Hawkeye series with David Aja. As part of Marvel NOW!, Fantastic Four was relaunched in November 2012 with the creative team of Fraction and artist Mark Bagley. Its spinoff series FF was produced by Fraction and artist Mike Allred. Fraction left both series due to other work commitments.
In February 2013, he was named on IGN's list of "The Best Tweeters in Comics", which described him as "the premier comics Twitter personality."
In 2013, Fraction and Chip Zdarsky co-created the Sex Criminals series for Image Comics. He and Christian Ward created the ODY-C series in 2014, a science-fiction retelling of the Odyssey with the characters' genders changed to female.
In 2015, Fraction and Fabio Moon returned to Casanova with a new eight-issue mini-series, Acedia. The series featured backup stories written by Michael Chabon with art by Casanova Co-Creator Gabriel Ba. Also in 2015, Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick's company, Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, signed a two-year deal with Universal Television to adapt some of their comic books, as well as original TV series concepts. They also planned to use Milkfed Criminal Masterminds as a TV launchpad for other comic creators’ properites.
In 2018, Milkfed Criminal Masterminds signed another two-year overall deal, this time with Legendary TV to adapt several of their creator-owned comics, as well as produce exclusive, original projects developed by the duo for television across traditional and non-traditional platforms.
In 2019, Fraction and Elsa Charretier co-created the graphic novella crime series, November for Image Comics, meanwhile Fraction wrote his first series for DC Comics, the twelve-issue series Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen which was drawn by Steve Lieber.
In 2020, Sex Criminals concluded with issue #69, volumes 2 and 3 of November were released, and Adventureman, the long-anticipated series from Fraction and Terry Dodson and Rachel Dodson began releasing from Image Comics, and his and Lieber's run on Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen concluded, with a collected trade paperback entitled Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? being released in October.
Fraction served as a consultant for the Hawkeye television miniseries, which was heavily inspired by his 2012 comic run. He also planned to make a cameo appearance as a member of the Tracksuit Mafia, but was unable to commit to this, due to complications stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Personal life
Fraction is married to Kelly Sue DeConnick, a comic book writer and adapter of manga into English, whom he met when they were both participants on the Warren Ellis Forum. They have two children, Henry and Tallulah.
Awards
2008 Eagle Award for Favourite Newcomer Writer
2009 Eisner Award for "Best New Series" for The Invincible Iron Man (shared with Salvador Larroca)
2010 PEN Center USA Literary Award for "Outstanding Body of Work"
2014 Harvey Award
"Best Single Issue or Story" for Hawkeye #11, "Pizza Is My Business" (shared with David Aja and others).
"Best New Series" for Sex Criminals (shared with Chip Zdarsky).
2014 Eisner Award
"Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)" for Hawkeye #11, "Pizza Is My Business" (shared with David Aja).
"Best New Series" for Sex Criminals (shared with Chip Zdarsky).
2016 Inkpot Award
Nominations
2008 Eisner Award
Best Single Issue (or One-Shot) for The Sensational Spider-Man Annual (shared with Salvador Larroca).
Eisner Award for Best New Series for The Immortal Iron Fist (shared with Ed Brubaker, David Aja and others)
2013 Harvey Award
Best Writer for Hawkeye
Best New Series for Hawkeye (shared with David Aja and others)
Best Continuing or Limited Series for Hawkeye (shared with David Aja and others)
Best Single Issue or Story for Hawkeye #1, "Lucky" (shared with David Aja and others)
2013 Eisner Award
Best Continuing Series for Hawkeye (shared with David Aja and others)
Best Writer for Hawkeye and Casanova: Avarita
2014 Harvey Award
Best Writer for Hawkeye
Best Continuing or Limited Series for Hawkeye (shared with David Aja and others)
2014 Eisner Award
Best Continuing Series for Hawkeye (shared with David Aja)
Best Continuing Series for Sex Criminals (shared with Chip Zdarsky)
Best Writer for Sex Criminals, Hawkeye, Fantastic Four, and FF
2014 Angoulême Sélection Officielle for Hawkeye, Vol 1 (shared with David Aja)
Bibliography
Early work
Double Take #6–8: "Rex Mantooth" (with Andy Kuhn, anthology, Funk-O-Tron, 2001–2002) collected as The Annotated Mantooth! (tpb, 96 pages, AiT/Planet Lar, 2002, )
Last of the Independents (with Kieron Dwyer, graphic novel, sc, 104 pages, AiT/Planet Lar, 2003, ; hc, 112 pages, Image, 2020, )
IDW Publishing:
30 Days of Night: Bloodsucker Tales #1–8: "Juarez, or Lex Nova and the Case of the 400 Dead Mexican Girls" (with Ben Templesmith, co-feature, 2004–2005)
Collected, along with the leading feature, in 30 Days of Night: Bloodsucker Tales (hc, 200 pages, 2005, ; tpb, 2005, )
Collected in a separate volume as 30 Days of Night: Juarez (tpb, 104 pages, 2009, )
Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty #0 (untitled five-page story with Ashley Wood, 2005)
Collected in Metal Gear Solid Omnibus (tpb, 552 pages, 2010, )
Collected in Metal Gear Solid: Deluxe Edition (hc, 608 pages, 2014, )
Image Comics
Four Letter Worlds: "Fate" (with Kieron Dwyer, anthology graphic novel, 144 pages, 2005, )
24Seven Volume 1: "Static" (with Frazer Irving, anthology graphic novel, 224 pages, 2006, )
The Five Fists of Science (with Steven Sanders, graphic novel, 112 pages, 2006, )
Casanova (with Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon):
Casanova #1–14 (2006–2008)
Issues #1–7 are collected as Album 1: Luxuria (hc, 144 pages, 2007, ; tpb, 2008, )
A colorized and relettered version of these fourteen issues was published as two 4-issue limited series under Marvel's Icon imprint.
Casanova: Acedia (with the Metanauts back-up feature, written by Michael Chabon and drawn by Gabriel Bá, 2015–2017) collected as:
Volume 1 (collects #1–4, tpb, 136 pages, 2015, )
Volume 2 (collects #5–8, tpb, 136 pages, 2017, )
Sex Criminals (with Chip Zdarsky, 2013–2020) collected as:
Big Hard Sex Criminals Volume 1 (collects #1–10, hc, 256 pages, 2015, )
Big Hard Sex Criminals Volume 2 (collects #11–20, hc, 256 pages, 2018, )
Big Hard Sex Criminals Volume 3 (collects #21–30 and 69, hc, 320 pages, 2021, )
Includes Sex Criminals: Sexual Gary Special (written by Fraction, art by Rachael Stott, 2020)
Satellite Sam #1–15 (with Howard Chaykin, 2013–2015) collected as Satellite Sam (hc, 400 pages, 2015, )
ODY-C #1–12 (with Christian Ward, 2014–2016) collected as ODY-C: Cycle One (hc, 400 pages, 2016, )
Solid State (script by Fraction based on the concept by Jonathan Coulton, art by Albert Monteys, graphic novel, sc, 128 pages, 2017, ; hc, 2018, )
Bitch Planet: Triple Feature #5: "Everyone's Grandma is a Little Bit Feminist" (with Elsa Charretier, anthology, 2017) collected in Bitch Planet: Triple Feature (tpb, 144 pages, 2017, )
November (with Elsa Charretier, series of graphic novels):
Volume 1 (hc, 80 pages, 2019, )
Volume 2 (hc, 80 pages, 2020, )
Volume 3 (hc, 80 pages, 2020, )
Volume 4 (hc, 80 pages, 2021, )
Adventureman (with Terry Dodson, 2020–ongoing) collected as:
The End and Everything After (collects #1–4, hc, 168 pages, 2020, )
A Fairy Tale of New York (collects #5–9, hc, 168 pages, 2022, )
The Old Guard: Tales Through Time #4: "How to Make a Ghost Town" (with Steve Lieber, anthology, 2021) collected in The Old Guard: Tales Through Time (tpb, 176 pages, 2021, )
Marvel Comics
X-Men:
X-Men Unlimited vol. 2 #9: "Dead Man Walking" (with Sam Kieth, anthology, 2005) collected in Astonishing X-Men Companion (tpb, 168 pages, 2020, )
Uncanny X-Men (with Terry Dodson, Greg Land, Yanick Paquette (#512), Whilce Portacio, Phil Jimenez (#522), Leonard Kirk (#527) and Harvey Tolibao (#529), 2008–2011) collected as:
Uncanny X-Men by Matt Fraction: The Complete Collection Volume 1 (collects #500–511 and Annual #2, tpb, 384 pages, 2013, )
Includes the "Migas" short story (art by Jamie McKelvie) from X-Men: Divided We Stand #1 (anthology, 2008)
Issues #500–503 are co-written by Fraction and Ed Brubaker.
Uncanny X-Men by Matt Fraction: The Complete Collection Volume 2 (collects #512–519, tpb, 368 pages, 2013, )
Includes the "How I Survived Apocalyptic Fire" short story (art by Daniel Acuña) from Dark Reign: The Cabal (anthology one-shot, 2009)
Includes the Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Utopia one-shot (written by Fraction, art by Marc Silvestri, 2009)
Includes Dark Avengers #7–8 (written by Fraction, art by Luke Ross, 2009) as part of Utopia inter-title crossover.
Includes the Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Exodus one-shot (written by Fraction, art by Mike Deodato, Jr., 2009)
Includes the Dark Reign: The List—X-Men one-shot (written by Fraction, art by Alan Davis, 2009)
Uncanny X-Men by Matt Fraction: The Complete Collection Volume 3 (collects #520–522 and 526–534, tpb, 336 pages, 2013, )
Includes the Uncanny X-Men: The Heroic Age one-shot (written by Fraction, art by Whilce Portacio, Steven Sanders and Jamie McKelvie, 2010)
Issues #531–534 are co-written by Fraction and Kieron Gillen.
X-Men: Second Coming (includes #523–525, hc, 392 pages, 2010, ; tpb, 2011, )
Includes Fraction's chapter of the epilogue from X-Men: Second Coming #2 (art by Terry Dodson, 2010)
The Immortal Iron Fist (co-written by Fraction and Ed Brubaker):
The Last Iron Fist Story (hc, 160 pages, 2007, ; tpb, 2007, ) collects:
Civil War: Choosing Sides: "The Immortal Iron Fist" (with David Aja, anthology one-shot, 2006)
"The Last Iron Fist Story" (with David Aja, Travel Foreman, John Severin, Russ Heath and Sal Buscema, in #1–6, 2007)
The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven (hc, 216 pages, 2008, ; tpb, 2008, ) collects:
"Men of a Certain Deadly Persuasion" (with Howard Chaykin, Dan Brereton and Jelena Kevic-Djurdjević, in Annual, 2007)
"The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven" (with David Aja, Roy Martinez, Scott Koblish, Kano, Javier Pulido, Tonči Zonjić and Clay Mann, in #8–14, 2007–2008)
The Book of Iron Fist (hc, 160 pages, 2008, ; tpb, 2009, ) collects:
"The Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay" (with Travel Foreman, Leandro Fernández and Khari Evans, in #7, 2007)
Orson Randall and the Green Mist of Death (with Russ Heath, Mitch Breitweiser, Nick Dragotta and Lewis LaRosa, one-shot, 2008)
The Origin of Danny Rand (with Kano, two-page framing sequence for a reprint of Marvel Premiere #15–16, one-shot, 2008)
"The Story of the Iron Fist Bei Bang-Wen (1827–1860)" (with Khari Evans, in #15, 2008)
"Happy Birthday Danny" (with David Aja, in #16, 2008)
Omnibus (collects #1–16, Annual, Civil War: Choosing Sides, Orson Randall and the Green Mist of Death and The Origin of Danny Rand, hc, 560 pages, 2009, )
The Complete Collection Volume 1 (collects #1–16, Annual, Civil War: Choosing Sides, Orson Randall and the Green Mist of Death and The Origin of Danny Rand, tpb, 496 pages, 2013, )
Punisher War Journal vol. 2 (with Ariel Olivetti, Mike Deodato, Jr. (#4), Leandro Fernández (#11), Cory Walker (#13), Scott Wegener (#14–15), Howard Chaykin and Andy MacDonald (#26), 2007–2009) collected as:
Issues #19–25 are co-written by Fraction and Rick Remender.
Civil War (collects #1–4, hc, 144 pages, 2007, ; tpb, 2007, )
Goin' Out West (collects #5–11, hc, 168 pages, 2007, ; tpb, 2008, )
Hunter/Hunted (collects #12–17, hc, 152 pages, 2008, ; tpb, 2008, )
Jigsaw (collects #18–23, hc, 144 pages, 2008, ; tpb, 2009, )
Secret Invasion (collects #24–26, hc, 120 pages, 2009, ; tpb, 2009, )
Spider-Man:
The Sensational Spider-Man vol. 2 Annual: "To Have and to Hold" (with Salvador Larocca, 2007) collected in Peter Parker, Spider-Man: Back in Black (hc, 336 pages, 2007, ; tpb, 2008, )
The Amazing Spider-Man: Presidents' Day Celebration (with Andy MacDonald, digital one-shot, 2009) collected in The Amazing Spider-Man: Election Day (hc, 184 pages, 2009, ; tpb, 2010, )
The Order (with Barry Kitson, Khari Evans (#5) and Javier Saltares (#9–10), 2007–2008) collected as:
The Next Right Thing (collects #1–5, tpb, 128 pages, 2008, )
California Dreaming (collects #6–10, tpb, 120 pages, 2008, )
The Invincible Iron Man (with Salvador Larroca, Jamie McKelvie (co-features in #32–33), Kano + Nathan Fox + Carmine Di Giandomenico (#500) and Howard Chaykin (co-feature in #503), 2008–2012) collected as:
The Five Nightmares (collects #1–7, hc, 184 pages, 2008, ; tpb, 2009, )
World's Most Wanted Volume 1 (collects #8–13, hc, 152 pages, 2009, ; tpb, 2010, )
World's Most Wanted Volume 2 (collects #14–19, hc, 160 pages, 2010, ; tpb, 2010, )
Stark Disassembled (collects #20–24, hc, 136 pages, 2010, ; tpb, 2011, )
Stark Resilient Volume 1 (collects #25–28, hc, 128 pages, 2010, ; tpb, 2011, )
Stark Resilient Volume 2 (collects #29–33, hc, 136 pages, 2011, ; tpb, 2011, )
My Monsters (collects #500, 500.1, Annual and the co-feature from #503, hc, 168 pages, 2011, ; tpb, 2011, )
Unfixable (includes #501–503, hc, 120 pages, 2011, ; tpb, 2012, )
Includes the Free Comic Book Day 2010: Iron Man/Thor special (written by Fraction, art by John Romita, Jr., 2010)
Fear Itself (collects #504–509 and Fear Itself #7.3, hc, 168 pages, 2012, ; tpb, 2012, )
Demon (collects #510–515, hc, 144 pages, 2012, ; tpb, 2013, )
Long Way Down (collects #516–520, hc, 112 pages, 2012, ; tpb, 2013, )
The Future (collects #521–527, hc, 152 pages, 2013, ; tpb, 2013, )
Thor:
Thor: Ages of Thunder (hc, 160 pages, 2009, ; tpb, 2009, ) collects:
Thor: Ages of Thunder (with Patrick Zircher and Khari Evans, one-shot, 2008)
Thor: Reign of Blood (with Patrick Zircher and Khari Evans, one-shot, 2008)
Thor: Man of War (with Patrick Zircher and Clay Mann, one-shot, 2009)
Thor God-Sized Special (with Dan Brereton, Doug Braithwaite, Mike Allred and Miguel Sepulveda, one-shot, 2009)
Secret Invasion: Thor #1–3 (with Doug Braithwaite, 2008) collected as Secret Invasion: Thor (tpb, 96 pages, 2009, )
Thor #615–621 (with Pasqual Ferry, 2010–2011) collected as Thor: The World Eaters (hc, 216 pages, 2011, ; tpb, 2011, )
The Mighty Thor (with Olivier Coipel, Pasqual Ferry, Pepe Larraz, Giuseppe Camuncoli (#12), Barry Kitson (#12.1 and 22), Alan Davis (#18) and Carmine Di Giandomenico, 2011–2012) collected as:
Volume 1 (collects #1–6, hc, 144 pages, 2011, ; tpb, 2012, )
Volume 2 (collects #7–12 and Fear Itself #7.2, hc, 168 pages, 2012, ; tpb, 2012, )
Volume 3 (collects #12.1 and 13–17, hc, 136 pages, 2012, ; tpb, 2013, )
The Mighty Thor/Journey into Mystery: Everything Burns (includes #18–22, hc, 216 pages, 2013, ; tpb, 2013, )
Issues #18–21 are co-written by Fraction and Kieron Gillen.
Captain America: Who Won't Wield the Shield?: "Doctor America" (with Howard Hallis and Brendan McCarthy, anthology one-shot, 2010) collected in Secret Wars Too (tpb, 208 pages, 2016, )
Casanova (Luxuria and Gula reprint the original Image series in colorized and relettered form with new short stories in Luxuria #1 (art by Fábio Moon) and Gula #4 (art by Gabriel Bá); published under the Icon imprint):
Casanova: Luxuria #1–4 (with Gabriel Bá, 2010) collected as Casanova: Luxuria (tpb, 160 pages, 2011, ; hc, 168 pages, Image, 2014, )
Casanova: Gula #1–4 (with Fábio Moon, 2011) collected as Casanova: Gula (tpb, 136 pages, 2012, ; hc, 168 pages, Image, 2015, )
Casanova: Avaritia #1–4 (with Gabriel Bá, 2011–2012) collected as Casanova: Avaritia (tpb, 152 pages, 2012, ; hc, 176 pages, Image, 2015, )
Fear Itself #1–7 (with Stuart Immonen, 2011) collected as Fear Itself (hc, 240 pages, 2012, ; tpb, 2012, )
Shattered Heroes (co-written by Fraction, Christopher Yost and Cullen Bunn):
Battle Scars #1–6 (with Scot Eaton, 2011–2012) collected as Battle Scars (tpb, 136 pages, 2012, )
Fear Itself: The Fearless #1–12 (with Mark Bagley and Paul Pelletier, 2012) collected as Fear Itself: The Fearless (hc, 272 pages, 2012, ; tpb, 2013, )
The Defenders vol. 4 (with Terry Dodson, Michael Lark (#4), Mitch Breiweiser (#5), Víctor Ibáñez (#6), Jamie McKelvie (#8–10) and Mirco Pierfederici (#11–12), 2011–2012) collected as:
Volume 1 (collects #1–6, tpb, 136 pages, 2012, )
Includes the "Shaman of Greenwich Village" short story (art by Terry Dodson) from Marvel Point One (anthology one-shot, 2012)
Volume 2 (collects #7–12, tpb, 136 pages, 2013, )
Avengers vs. X-Men (hc, 568 pages, 2012, ; tpb, 384 pages, 2013, ) includes:
"Chapter Five" (with John Romita, Jr., in #5, 2012)
"Chapter Seven" (with Olivier Coipel, in #7, 2012)
AvX: VS #5: "Hawkeye vs. Angel" (with Leinil Francis Yu, anthology, 2012) also collected in Avengers vs. X-Men: VS (tpb, 160 pages, 2013, )
Hawkeye vol. 4 (with David Aja, Javier Pulido (#4–5), Steve Lieber + Jesse Hamm (#7), Annie Wu and Francesco Francavilla (#10 and 12), 2012–2015) collected as:
Volume 1 (collects #1–11, hc, 272 pages, 2013, )
Includes Young Avengers Presents #6 (written by Fraction, art by Alan Davis, 2008)
Volume 2 (collects #12–22 and Annual, hc, 280 pages, 2015, )
Omnibus (collects #1–22, Annual and Young Avengers Presents #6, hc, 552 pages, 2015, )
Fantastic Four:
Fantastic Four vol. 4 (with Mark Bagley and André Lima Araújo (#5.AU), 2013–2014) collected as:
New Departure, New Arrivals (collects #1–3 and FF vol. 2 #1–3, tpb, 144 pages, 2013, )
Includes the Ant-Man short story (art by Mike Allred) from Marvel NOW! Point One (anthology one-shot, 2012)
Road Trip (collects #4–8 and 5.AU, tpb, 136 pages, 2013, )
Doomed (collects #9–16, tpb, 184 pages, 2014, )
Issues #11–12 are co-written by Fraction and Christopher Sebela.
Issues #13–16 are scripted by Karl Kesel from Fraction's plots.
FF vol. 2 (with Mike Allred and Joe Quinones (#6 and 9), 2013–2014) collected as:
Fantastic Faux (collects #4–8, tpb, 112 pages, 2013, )
Family Freakout (collects #9–16, tpb, 184 pages, 2014, )
Issues #12–16 are scripted by Lee Allred from Fraction's plots.
Both series along with the short story from the Marvel NOW! Point One one-shot are collected into a single volume as Fantastic Four by Matt Fraction Omnibus (hc, 760 pages, 2015, )
Inhumanity #1–2 (with Olivier Coipel, Leinil Francis Yu, Dustin Weaver, Nick Bradshaw and Todd Nauck, 2014) collected in Inhumanity (hc, 448 pages, 2014, ; tpb, 2015, )
Following these issues, Fraction was supposed to launch an ongoing Inhuman series with artist Joe Madureira but due to "creative differences" the title was handed over to Charles Soule.
Other publishers
For God and Country: An Illustrated Account of the Raid on Osama bin Laden (with Nathan Fox, a webcomic commissioned by GQ, 2011)
Dark Horse Presents vol. 2 #25: "The Time Ben Fell in Love" (with Christian Ward, anthology, Dark Horse, 2013)
Spitball: A CCAD Comics Anthology #1: "Three Stories" (with Chris Passabet, Columbus College of Art and Design, 2015)
DC Comics:
Superman: The Truth Revealed (hc, 192 pages, 2020, ; tpb, 2021, ) includes:
Superman: Heroes (co-written by Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis and Greg Rucka, art by various artists, one-shot, 2020)
Superman: Villains (co-written by Fraction, Brian Michael Bendis and Jody Houser, art by various artists, one-shot, 2020)
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen? (tpb, 320 pages, 2020, ) collects:
Superman: Leviathan Rising: "One Wild Night in Gorilla City" (with Steve Lieber, co-feature in one-shot, 2019)
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen vol. 2 #1–12 (with Steve Lieber, 2019–2020)
Detective Comics #1027: "Many Happy Returns" (with Chip Zdarsky, co-feature, 2020)
Other work
Fraction served as a consulting producer for the Disney+ series Hawkeye, which is heavily influenced by his stint writing for the Hawkeye comic.
References
External links
1975 births
American comics writers
Eisner Award winners
Inkpot Award winners
Living people
Marvel Comics writers
People from Chicago Heights, Illinois
Pseudonymous writers
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Metrology is the scientific study of measurement. It establishes a common understanding of units, crucial in linking human activities. Modern metrology has its roots in the French Revolution's political motivation to standardise units in France, when a length standard taken from a natural source was proposed. This led to the creation of the decimal-based metric system in 1795, establishing a set of standards for other types of measurements. Several other countries adopted the metric system between 1795 and 1875; to ensure conformity between the countries, the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) was established by the Metre Convention. This has evolved into the International System of Units (SI) as a result of a resolution at the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) in 1960.
Metrology is divided into three basic overlapping activities:
The definition of units of measurement
The realisation of these units of measurement in practice
Traceability—linking measurements made in practice to the reference standards
These overlapping activities are used in varying degrees by the three basic sub-fields of metrology:
Scientific or fundamental metrology, concerned with the establishment of units of measurement
Applied, technical or industrial metrology—the application of measurement to manufacturing and other processes in society
Legal metrology, covering the regulation and statutory requirements for measuring instruments and methods of measurement
In each country, a national measurement system (NMS) exists as a network of laboratories, calibration facilities and accreditation bodies which implement and maintain its metrology infrastructure. The NMS affects how measurements are made in a country and their recognition by the international community, which has a wide-ranging impact in its society (including economics, energy, environment, health, manufacturing, industry and consumer confidence). The effects of metrology on trade and economy are some of the easiest-observed societal impacts. To facilitate fair trade, there must be an agreed-upon system of measurement.
History
The ability to measure alone is insufficient; standardisation is crucial for measurements to be meaningful. The first record of a permanent standard was in 2900 BC, when the royal Egyptian cubit was carved from black granite. The cubit was decreed to be the length of the Pharaoh's forearm plus the width of his hand, and replica standards were given to builders. The success of a standardised length for the building of the pyramids is indicated by the lengths of their bases differing by no more than 0.05 percent.
Other civilizations produced generally accepted measurement standards, with Roman and Greek architecture based on distinct systems of measurement. The collapse of the empires and the Dark Ages that followed lost much measurement knowledge and standardisation. Although local systems of measurement were common, comparability was difficult since many local systems were incompatible. England established the Assize of Measures to create standards for length measurements in 1196, and the 1215 Magna Carta included a section for the measurement of wine and beer.
Modern metrology has its roots in the French Revolution. With a political motivation to harmonise units throughout France, a length standard based on a natural source was proposed. In March 1791, the metre was defined. This led to the creation of the decimal-based metric system in 1795, establishing standards for other types of measurements. Several other countries adopted the metric system between 1795 and 1875; to ensure international conformity, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (, or BIPM) was established by the Metre Convention. Although the BIPM's original mission was to create international standards for units of measurement and relate them to national standards to ensure conformity, its scope has broadened to include electrical and photometric units and ionizing radiation measurement standards. The metric system was modernised in 1960 with the creation of the International System of Units (SI) as a result of a resolution at the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures (, or CGPM).
Subfields
Metrology is defined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) as "the science of measurement, embracing both experimental and theoretical determinations at any level of uncertainty in any field of science and technology". It establishes a common understanding of units, crucial to human activity. Metrology is a wide reaching field, but can be summarized through three basic activities: the definition of internationally accepted units of measurement, the realisation of these units of measurement in practice, and the application of chains of traceability (linking measurements to reference standards). These concepts apply in different degrees to metrology's three main fields: scientific metrology; applied, technical or industrial metrology, and legal metrology.
Scientific metrology
Scientific metrology is concerned with the establishment of units of measurement, the development of new measurement methods, the realisation of measurement standards, and the transfer of traceability from these standards to users in a society. This type of metrology is considered the top level of metrology which strives for the highest degree of accuracy. BIPM maintains a database of the metrological calibration and measurement capabilities of institutes around the world. These institutes, whose activities are peer-reviewed, provide the fundamental reference points for metrological traceability. In the area of measurement, BIPM has identified nine metrology areas, which are acoustics, electricity and magnetism, length, mass and related quantities, photometry and radiometry, ionizing radiation, time and frequency, thermometry, and chemistry.
As of May 2019 no physical objects define the base units. The motivation in the change of the base units is to make the entire system derivable from physical constants, which required the removal of the prototype kilogram as it is the last artefact the unit definitions depend on. Scientific metrology plays an important role in this redefinition of the units as precise measurements of the physical constants is required to have accurate definitions of the base units. To redefine the value of a kilogram without an artefact the value of the Planck constant must be known to twenty parts per billion. Scientific metrology, through the development of the Kibble balance and the Avogadro project, has produced a value of Planck constant with low enough uncertainty to allow for a redefinition of the kilogram.
Applied, technical or industrial metrology
Applied, technical or industrial metrology is concerned with the application of measurement to manufacturing and other processes and their use in society, ensuring the suitability of measurement instruments, their calibration and quality control. Producing good measurements is important in industry as it has an impact on the value and quality of the end product, and a 10–15% impact on production costs. Although the emphasis in this area of metrology is on the measurements themselves, traceability of the measuring-device calibration is necessary to ensure confidence in the measurement. Recognition of the metrological competence in industry can be achieved through mutual recognition agreements, accreditation, or peer review. Industrial metrology is important to a country's economic and industrial development, and the condition of a country's industrial-metrology program can indicate its economic status.
Legal metrology
Legal metrology "concerns activities which result from statutory requirements and concern measurement, units of measurement, measuring instruments and methods of measurement and which are performed by competent bodies". Such statutory requirements may arise from the need for protection of health, public safety, the environment, enabling taxation, protection of consumers and fair trade. The International Organization for Legal Metrology (OIML) was established to assist in harmonising regulations across national boundaries to ensure that legal requirements do not inhibit trade. This harmonisation ensures that certification of measuring devices in one country is compatible with another country's certification process, allowing the trade of the measuring devices and the products that rely on them. WELMEC was established in 1990 to promote cooperation in the field of legal metrology in the European Union and among European Free Trade Association (EFTA) member states. In the United States legal metrology is under the authority of the Office of Weights and Measures of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), enforced by the individual states.
Concepts
Definition of units
The International System of Units (SI) defines seven base units: length, mass, time, electric current, thermodynamic temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity. By convention, each of these units are considered to be mutually independent and can be constructed directly from their defining constants. All other SI units are constructed as products of powers of the seven base units.
Since the base units are the reference points for all measurements taken in SI units, if the reference value changed all prior measurements would be incorrect. Before 2019, if a piece of the international prototype of the kilogram had been snapped off, it would have still been defined as a kilogram; all previous measured values of a kilogram would be heavier. The importance of reproducible SI units has led the BIPM to complete the task of defining all SI base units in terms of physical constants.
By defining SI base units with respect to physical constants, and not artefacts or specific substances, they are realisable with a higher level of precision and reproducibility. As of the redefinition of the SI units on 20 May 2019 the kilogram, ampere, kelvin, and mole are defined by setting exact numerical values for the Planck constant (), the elementary electric charge (), the Boltzmann constant (), and the Avogadro constant (), respectively. The second, metre, and candela have previously been defined by physical constants (the caesium standard (ΔνCs), the speed of light (), and the luminous efficacy of visible light radiation (Kcd)), subject to correction to their present definitions. The new definitions aim to improve the SI without changing the size of any units, thus ensuring continuity with existing measurements.
Realisation of units
The realisation of a unit of measure is its conversion into reality. Three possible methods of realisation are defined by the international vocabulary of metrology (VIM): a physical realisation of the unit from its definition, a highly-reproducible measurement as a reproduction of the definition (such as the quantum Hall effect for the ohm), and the use of a material object as the measurement standard.
Standards
A standard (or etalon) is an object, system, or experiment with a defined relationship to a unit of measurement of a physical quantity. Standards are the fundamental reference for a system of weights and measures by realising, preserving, or reproducing a unit against which measuring devices can be compared. There are three levels of standards in the hierarchy of metrology: primary, secondary, and working standards. Primary standards (the highest quality) do not reference any other standards. Secondary standards are calibrated with reference to a primary standard. Working standards, used to calibrate (or check) measuring instruments or other material measures, are calibrated with respect to secondary standards. The hierarchy preserves the quality of the higher standards. An example of a standard would be gauge blocks for length. A gauge block is a block of metal or ceramic with two opposing faces ground precisely flat and parallel, a precise distance apart. The length of the path of light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second is embodied in an artefact standard such as a gauge block; this gauge block is then a primary standard which can be used to calibrate secondary standards through mechanical comparators.
Traceability and calibration
Metrological traceability is defined as the "property of a measurement result whereby the result can be related to a reference through a documented unbroken chain of calibrations, each contributing to the measurement uncertainty". It permits the comparison of measurements, whether the result is compared to the previous result in the same laboratory, a measurement result a year ago, or to the result of a measurement performed anywhere else in the world. The chain of traceability allows any measurement to be referenced to higher levels of measurements back to the original definition of the unit.
Traceability is most often obtained by calibration, establishing the relationship between an indication on a measuring instrument (or secondary standard) and the value of the standard. A calibration is an operation that establishes a relation between a measurement standard with a known measurement uncertainty and the device that is being evaluated. The process will determine the measurement value and uncertainty of the device that is being calibrated and create a traceability link to the measurement standard. The four primary reasons for calibrations are to provide traceability, to ensure that the instrument (or standard) is consistent with other measurements, to determine accuracy, and to establish reliability. Traceability works as a pyramid, at the top level there is the international standards, at the next level national metrology institutes calibrate the primary standards through realisation of the units creating the traceability link from the primary standard and the unit definition. Through subsequent calibrations between national metrology institutes, calibration laboratories, and industry and testing laboratories the realisation of the unit definition is propagated down through the pyramid. The traceability chain works upwards from the bottom of the pyramid, where measurements done by industry and testing laboratories can be directly related to the unit definition at the top through the traceability chain created by calibration.
Uncertainty
Measurement uncertainty is a value associated with a measurement which expresses the spread of possible values associated with the measurand—a quantitative expression of the doubt existing in the measurement. There are two components to the uncertainty of a measurement: the width of the uncertainty interval and the confidence level. The uncertainty interval is a range of values that the measurement value expected to fall within, while the confidence level is how likely the true value is to fall within the uncertainty interval. Uncertainty is generally expressed as follows:
Coverage factor: k = 2
Where y is the measurement value and U is the uncertainty value and k is the coverage factor indicates the confidence interval. The upper and lower limit of the uncertainty interval can be determined by adding and subtracting the uncertainty value from the measurement value. The coverage factor of k = 2 generally indicates a 95% confidence that the measured value will fall inside the uncertainty interval. Other values of k can be used to indicate a greater or lower confidence on the interval, for example k = 1 and k = 3 generally indicate 66% and 99.7% confidence respectively. The uncertainty value is determined through a combination of statistical analysis of the calibration and uncertainty contribution from other errors in measurement process, which can be evaluated from sources such as the instrument history, manufacturer's specifications, or published information.
International infrastructure
Several international organizations maintain and standardise metrology.
Metre Convention
The Metre Convention created three main international organizations to facilitate standardisation of weights and measures. The first, the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM), provided a forum for representatives of member states. The second, the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM), was an advisory committee of metrologists of high standing. The third, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), provided secretarial and laboratory facilities for the CGPM and CIPM.
General Conference on Weights and Measures
The General Conference on Weights and Measures (, or CGPM) is the convention's principal decision-making body, consisting of delegates from member states and non-voting observers from associate states. The conference usually meets every four to six years to receive and discuss a CIPM report and endorse new developments in the SI as advised by the CIPM. The last meeting was held on 13–16 November 2018. On the last day of this conference there was vote on the redefinition of four base units, which the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) had proposed earlier that year. The new definitions came into force on 20 May 2019.
International Committee for Weights and Measures
The International Committee for Weights and Measures (, or CIPM) is made up of eighteen (originally fourteen) individuals from a member state of high scientific standing, nominated by the CGPM to advise the CGPM on administrative and technical matters. It is responsible for ten consultative committees (CCs), each of which investigates a different aspect of metrology; one CC discusses the measurement of temperature, another the measurement of mass, and so forth. The CIPM meets annually in Sèvres to discuss reports from the CCs, to submit an annual report to the governments of member states concerning the administration and finances of the BIPM and to advise the CGPM on technical matters as needed. Each member of the CIPM is from a different member state, with France (in recognition of its role in establishing the convention) always having one seat.
International Bureau of Weights and Measures
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (, or BIPM) is an organisation based in Sèvres, France which has custody of the international prototype of the kilogram, provides metrology services for the CGPM and CIPM, houses the secretariat for the organisations and hosts their meetings. Over the years, prototypes of the metre and of the kilogram have been returned to BIPM headquarters for recalibration. The BIPM director is an ex officio member of the CIPM and a member of all consultative committees.
International Organization of Legal Metrology
The International Organization of Legal Metrology (, or OIML), is an intergovernmental organization created in 1955 to promote the global harmonisation of the legal metrology procedures facilitating international trade. This harmonisation of technical requirements, test procedures and test-report formats ensure confidence in measurements for trade and reduces the costs of discrepancies and measurement duplication. The OIML publishes a number of international reports in four categories:
Recommendations: Model regulations to establish metrological characteristics and conformity of measuring instruments
Informative documents: To harmonise legal metrology
Guidelines for the application of legal metrology
Basic publications: Definitions of the operating rules of the OIML structure and system
Although the OIML has no legal authority to impose its recommendations and guidelines on its member countries, it provides a standardised legal framework for those countries to assist the development of appropriate, harmonised legislation for certification and calibration. OIML provides a mutual acceptance arrangement (MAA) for measuring instruments that are subject to legal metrological control, which upon approval allows the evaluation and test reports of the instrument to be accepted in all participating countries. Issuing participants in the agreement issue MAA Type Evaluation Reports of MAA Certificates upon demonstration of compliance with ISO/IEC 17065 and a peer evaluation system to determine competency. This ensures that certification of measuring devices in one country is compatible with the certification process in other participating countries, allowing the trade of the measuring devices and the products that rely on them.
International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation
The International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) is an international organisation for accreditation agencies involved in the certification of conformity-assessment bodies. It standardises accreditation practices and procedures, recognising competent calibration facilities and assisting countries developing their own accreditation bodies. ILAC originally began as a conference in 1977 to develop international cooperation for accredited testing and calibration results to facilitate trade. In 2000, 36 members signed the ILAC mutual recognition agreement (MRA), allowing members work to be automatically accepted by other signatories, and in 2012 was expanded to include accreditation of inspection bodies. Through this standardisation, work done in laboratories accredited by signatories is automatically recognised internationally through the MRA. Other work done by ILAC includes promotion of laboratory and inspection body accreditation, and supporting the development of accreditation systems in developing economies.
Joint Committee for Guides in Metrology
The Joint Committee for Guides in Metrology (JCGM) is a committee which created and maintains two metrology guides: Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement (GUM) and International vocabulary of metrology – basic and general concepts and associated terms (VIM). The JCGM is a collaboration of eight partner organisations:
International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM)
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC)
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC)
International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP)
International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML)
International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC)
The JCGM has two working groups: JCGM-WG1 and JCGM-WG2. JCGM-WG1 is responsible for the GUM, and JCGM-WG2 for the VIM. Each member organization appoints one representative and up to two experts to attend each meeting, and may appoint up to three experts for each working group.
National infrastructure
A national measurement system (NMS) is a network of laboratories, calibration facilities and accreditation bodies which implement and maintain a country's measurement infrastructure. The NMS sets measurement standards, ensuring the accuracy, consistency, comparability, and reliability of measurements made in the country. The measurements of member countries of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (CIPM MRA), an agreement of national metrology institutes, are recognized by other member countries. As of March 2018, there are 102 signatories of the CIPM MRA, consisting of 58 member states, 40 associate states, and 4 international organizations.
Metrology institutes
A national metrology institute's (NMI) role in a country's measurement system is to conduct scientific metrology, realise base units, and maintain primary national standards. An NMI provides traceability to international standards for a country, anchoring its national calibration hierarchy. For a national measurement system to be recognized internationally by the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement, an NMI must participate in international comparisons of its measurement capabilities. BIPM maintains a comparison database and a list of calibration and measurement capabilities (CMCs) of the countries participating in the CIPM MRA. Not all countries have a centralised metrology institute; some have a lead NMI and several decentralised institutes specialising in specific national standards. Some examples of NMI's are the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States, the National Research Council (NRC) in Canada, the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS), and the National Physical Laboratory of India (NPL-India).
Calibration laboratories
Calibration laboratories are generally responsible for calibrations of industrial instrumentation. Calibration laboratories are accredited and provide calibration services to industry firms, which provides a traceability link back to the national metrology institute. Since the calibration laboratories are accredited, they give companies a traceability link to national metrology standards.
Accreditation bodies
An organisation is accredited when an authoritative body determines, by assessing the organisation's personnel and management systems, that it is competent to provide its services. For international recognition, a country's accreditation body must comply with international requirements and is generally the product of international and regional cooperation. A laboratory is evaluated according to international standards such as ISO/IEC 17025 general requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories. To ensure objective and technically-credible accreditation, the bodies are independent of other national measurement system institutions. The National Association of Testing Authorities in Australia, the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, and National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories in India, are examples of accreditation bodies.
Impacts
Metrology has wide-ranging impacts on a number of sectors, including economics, energy, the environment, health, manufacturing, industry, and consumer confidence. The effects of metrology on trade and the economy are two of its most-apparent societal impacts. To facilitate fair and accurate trade between countries, there must be an agreed-upon system of measurement. Accurate measurement and regulation of water, fuel, food, and electricity are critical for consumer protection and promote the flow of goods and services between trading partners. A common measurement system and quality standards benefit consumer and producer; production at a common standard reduces cost and consumer risk, ensuring that the product meets consumer needs. Transaction costs are reduced through an increased economy of scale. Several studies have indicated that increased standardisation in measurement has a positive impact on GDP. In the United Kingdom, an estimated 28.4 percent of GDP growth from 1921 to 2013 was the result of standardisation; in Canada between 1981 and 2004 an estimated nine percent of GDP growth was standardisation-related, and in Germany the annual economic benefit of standardisation is an estimated 0.72% of GDP.
Legal metrology has reduced accidental deaths and injuries with measuring devices, such as radar guns and breathalyzers, by improving their efficiency and reliability. Measuring the human body is challenging, with poor repeatability and reproducibility, and advances in metrology help develop new techniques to improve health care and reduce costs. Environmental policy is based on research data, and accurate measurements are important for assessing climate change and environmental regulation. Aside from regulation, metrology is essential in supporting innovation, the ability to measure provides a technical infrastructure and tools that can then be used to pursue further innovation. By providing a technical platform which new ideas can be built upon, easily demonstrated, and shared, measurement standards allow new ideas to be explored and expanded upon.
See also
Accuracy and precision
Data analysis
Dimensional metrology
Forensic metrology
Geometric dimensioning and tolerancing
Historical metrology
Instrumentation
International vocabulary of metrology
Length measurement
Measurement (academic journal)
Metrication
Metrologia (academic journal)
NCSL International
Test method
Time metrology
World Metrology Day
Notes
References
External links
Measurement Uncertainties in Science and Technology, Springer 2005
Presentation about Product Quality planning that includes a typical industry "Dimensional Control Plan"
Training in Metrology in Chemistry (TrainMiC)
Measurement Science in Chemistry
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Lars von Trier (born Lars Trier; 30 April 1956) is a Danish film director and screenwriter with a prolific and controversial career spanning more than four decades. His work is known for its genre and technical innovation, confrontational examination of existential, social, and political issues, and his treatment of subjects such as mercy, sacrifice, and mental health.
Among his more than 100 awards and 200 nominations at film festivals worldwide, von Trier has received: the Palme d'Or (for Dancer in the Dark), the Grand Prix (for Breaking the Waves), the Prix du Jury (for Europa), and the Technical Grand Prize (for The Element of Crime and Europa) at the Cannes Film Festival.
Von Trier is the founder and shareholder of the Danish film production company Zentropa Films, which has sold more than 350million tickets and garnered seven Academy Award nominations.
Early life and education
Von Trier was born in Kongens Lyngby, Denmark, north of Copenhagen, to Inger Høst and Fritz Michael Hartmann (the head of Denmark's Ministry of Social Affairs and a World War II resistance fighter). He received his surname from Høst's husband, Ulf Trier, whom he believed to be his biological father until 1989.
He studied film theory at the University of Copenhagen and film direction at the National Film School of Denmark. At 25, he won two Best School Film awards at the Munich International Festival of Film Schools for Nocturne and Last Detail. The same year, he added the German nobiliary particle "von" to his name, possibly as a satirical homage to the equally self-invented titles of directors Erich von Stroheim and Josef von Sternberg, and saw his graduation film Images of Liberation released as a theatrical feature.
Career
1984–1994: Career beginnings and the Europa trilogy
In 1984, The Element of Crime, von Trier's breakthrough film, received twelve awards at seven international festivals including the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes, and a nomination for the Palme d'Or. The film's slow, non-linear pace, innovative and multi-leveled plot design, and dark dreamlike visual effects combine to create an allegory for traumatic European historical events.
His next film, Epidemic (1987), was also shown at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. The film features two story lines that ultimately collide: the chronicle of two filmmakers (played by vonTrier and screenwriter Niels Vørse) in the midst of developing a new project, and a dark science fiction tale of a futuristic plaguethe very film von Trier and Vørsel are depicted making.
Von Trier has occasionally referred to his films as falling into thematic and stylistic trilogies. This pattern began with The Element of Crime (1984), the first of the Europa trilogy, which illuminated traumatic periods in Europe both in the past and the future. It includes The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987), and Europa (1991).
He directed Medea (1988) for television, which won him the Jean d'Arcy prize in France. It is based on a screenplay by Carl Th. Dreyer and stars Udo Kier. Trier completed the Europa trilogy in 1991 with Europa (released as Zentropa in the US), which won the Prix duJury at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, and picked up awards at other major festivals. In 1990 he also directed the music video for the song "Bakerman" by Laid Back. This video was re-used in 2006 by the English DJ and artist Shaun Baker in his remake of the song.
Seeking financial independence and creative control over their projects, in 1992 vonTrier and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen founded the film production company Zentropa Entertainment. Named after a fictional railway company in Europa, their most recent film at the time, Zentropa has produced many movies other than Trier's own, as well as several television series. It has also produced hardcore sex films: Constance (1998), Pink Prison (1999), HotMen CoolBoyz (2000), and All About Anna (2005). To make money for his newly founded company, vonTrier made The Kingdom (Danish title Riget, 1994) and The KingdomII (RigetII, 1997), a pair of miniseries recorded in the Danish national hospital, the name "Riget" being a colloquial name for the hospital known as Rigshospitalet (lit. The Kingdom's Hospital) in Danish. A projected third season of the series was derailed by the death in 1998 of Ernst-Hugo Järegård, who played Dr. Helmer, and that of Kirsten Rolffes, who played Mrs. Drusse, in 2000, two of the major characters.
1995–2000: the Dogme 95 manifesto, and the Golden Heart trilogy
In 1995, von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg presented their manifesto for a new cinematic movement, which they called Dogme 95. The Dogme95 concept, which led to international interest in Danish film, inspired filmmakers all over the world. In 2008, together with their fellow Dogme directors Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, vonTrier and Thomas Vinterberg received the European film award for European Achievement in World Cinema.
In 1996 von Trier conducted an unusual theatrical experiment in Copenhagen involving 53 actors, which he titled Psychomobile1: The World Clock. A documentary chronicling the project was directed by Jesper Jargil, and was released in 2000 with the title De Udstillede (The Exhibited).
Von Trier achieved his greatest international success with his Golden Heart trilogy. Each film in the trilogy is about naive heroines who maintain their "golden hearts" despite the tragedies they experience. This trilogy consists of: Breaking the Waves (1996), The Idiots (1998), and Dancer in the Dark (2000). While all three films are sometimes associated with the Dogme 95 movement, only The Idiots is a certified Dogme95 film.
Breaking the Waves (1996), the first film in his Golden Heart trilogy, won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and featured Emily Watson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Its grainy images, and hand-held photography, pointed towards Dogme95 but violated several of the manifesto's rules, and therefore does not qualify as a Dogme95 film. The second film in the trilogy, The Idiots (1998), was nominated for a Palme d'Or, with which he was presented in person at the Cannes Film Festival despite his dislike of traveling. In 2000, von Trier premiered a musical featuring Icelandic musician Björk, Dancer in the Dark. The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. The song "I've Seen It All" (co-written by vonTrier) received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
2003–2008: The Land of Opportunities and other works
The Five Obstructions (2003), made by vonTrier and Jørgen Leth, is a documentary that incorporates lengthy sections of experimental films. The premise is that vonTrier challenges director Jørgen Leth, his friend and mentor, to remake his old experimental film The Perfect Human (1967) five times, each time with a different "obstruction" (or obstacle) specified by vonTrier.
A proposed trilogy, von Trier's Land of Opportunities consists of Dogville (2003), Manderlay (2005), and , which is yet to be made. Dogville and Manderlay were both shot with the same distinctive, extremely stylized approach, placing the actors on a bare sound stage with no set decoration and the buildings' walls marked by chalk lines on the floor, a style inspired by 1970s televised theatre. Dogville (2003) starred Nicole Kidman and Manderlay (2005) starred Bryce Dallas Howard in the same main role as Grace Margaret Mulligan. Both films have casts of major international actors, including Harriet Andersson, Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Danny Glover, and Willem Dafoe, and question various issues relating to American society, such as intolerance (in Dogville) and slavery (in Manderlay).
In 2006, von Trier released a Danish-language comedy film, The Boss of It All. It was shot using an experimental process that he has called Automavision, which involves the director choosing the best possible fixed camera position and then allowing a computer to randomly choose when to tilt, pan, or zoom. Following The Boss of It All, von Trier scripted an autobiographical film, in 2007, which went on to be directed by Jacob Thuesen. The film tells the story of vonTrier's years as a student at the National Film School of Denmark. It stars Jonatan Spang as vonTrier's alter ego, called "Erik Nietzsche", and is narrated by vonTrier himself. All the main characters in the film are based on real people from the Danish film industry, with thinly veiled portrayals including Jens Albinus as director Nils Malmros, Dejan Čukić as screenwriter Mogens Rukov, and Søren Pilmark.
2009–2014: The Depression trilogy
The Depression trilogy consists of Antichrist, Melancholia, and Nymphomaniac. The three films star Charlotte Gainsbourg, and deal with characters who suffer depression or grief in different ways. This trilogy is said to represent the depression that Trier himself experiences.
Von Trier's next feature film was Antichrist, a film about "a grieving couple who retreat to their cabin in the woods, hoping a return to Eden will repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage; but nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse". The film stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. It premiered in competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where the festival's jury honoured the movie by giving the Best Actress award to Gainsbourg.
In 2011, vonTrier released Melancholia, a psychological drama. The film was in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Known to be provocative in interviews, vonTrier's remarks during the press conference before the premiere of Melancholia in Cannes caused significant controversy in the media, leading the festival to declare him persona non grata and to ban him from the festival for one year (without, however, excluding Melancholia from that year's competition). Minutes before the end of the interview, Trier was asked by a journalist about his German roots and the Nazi aesthetic in response to the director's description of the film's genre as "German romance". The director, who was brought up with his Jewish father and only found out later in life that his biological father was a non-Jewish German, appeared offended by the connotation and responded by discussing his German identity. He joked that since he was no longer Jewish he now "understands" and "sympathizes" with Hitler, that he is not against the Jews except for Israel which is "a pain in the ass" and that he is a Nazi. These remarks caused a stir in the media which, for the most part, presented the incident as an antisemitic scandal. The director released a formal apology immediately after the controversial press conference and kept apologizing for his joke during all of the interviews he gave in the weeks following the incident, admitting that he was not sober, and saying that he did not need to explain that he is not a Nazi. The actors of Melancholia who were present during the incident – Dunst, Gainsbourg, Skarsgård – defended the director, pointing to his provocative sense of humor and his depression. The director of the Cannes festival later called the controversy "unfair" and as "stupid" as vonTrier's bad joke, concluding that his films are welcome at the festival and that vonTrier is considered a "friend". In 2019, von Trier stated that he made this remark at the "only press conference I ever had when I was sober."
Following Melancholia, von Trier began the production of Nymphomaniac, a film about the sexual awakening of a woman played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. In early December 2013, a four-hour version of the five-and-a-half-hour film was shown to the press in a private preview session. The cast also included Stellan Skarsgård (in his sixth film for von Trier), Shia LaBeouf, Willem Dafoe, Jamie Bell, Christian Slater, and Uma Thurman. In response to claims that he had merely created a "porn film", Skarsgård stated "... if you look at this film, it's actually a really bad porn movie, even if you fast forward. And after a while you find you don't even react to the explicit scenes. They become as natural as seeing someone eating a bowl of cereal." VonTrier refused to attend the private screening due to the negative response to Nazi-related remarks he had made at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, which had led to his expulsion from it. In the director's defense, Skarsgård stated at the screening, "Everyone knows he's not a Nazi, and it was disgraceful the way the press had these headlines saying he was." For its public release in the United Kingdom, the four-hour version of Nymphomaniac was divided into two "volumes"VolumeI and VolumeIIand the film's British premiere was on 22February 2014. In interviews prior to the release date, Gainsbourg and co-star Stacy Martin revealed that prosthetic vaginas, body doubles, and special effects were used for the production of the film. Martin also stated that the film's characters were a reflection of the director himself and referred to the experience as an "honour" that she enjoyed. The film was also released in two "volumes" for the Australian release on 20 March 2014, with an interval separating the back-to-back sections. In his review of the film for 3RRR's film criticism program, Plato's Cave, presenter Josh Nelson stated that, since the production of Breaking the Waves, the filmmaker von Trier is most akin to is Alfred Hitchcock, due to his portrayal of feminine issues. Nelson also mentioned filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky as another influence whom Trier himself has also cited. In February 2014, an uncensored version of Volume I was shown at the Berlin Film Festival, with no announcement of when or if the complete five-and-a-half-hour Nymphomaniac would be made available to the public. The complete version premiered at the 2014 Venice Film Festival and was shortly afterward released in a limited theatrical run worldwide that fall.
2015–present: The House That Jack Built and the return to Cannes
In 2015, von Trier started to work on a new feature film, The House That Jack Built (2018), which was originally planned as an eight-part television series. The story is about a serial killer, seen from the murderer's point of view. Shooting started in March 2017 in Sweden, with shooting moving to Copenhagen in May.
In February 2017, von Trier explained in his own words that The House That Jack Built "celebrates the idea that life is evil and soulless, which is sadly proven by the recent rise of the Homo trumpus – the rat king". The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2018. Despite more than 100 walkouts by audience members when initially screened at the Cannes Film Festival, the film still received a 10-minute standing ovation.
In December 2020, it was announced that von Trier would produce a final season for his acclaimed series The Kingdom, titled The Kingdom Exodus. It is expected to be shot in 2021 and will consist of five episodes that will be released in 2022.
Aesthetics, themes, and style of working
Influences
Von Trier is heavily influenced by the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer and the film The Night Porter. He was so inspired by the short film The Perfect Human, directed by Jørgen Leth, that he challenged Leth to redo the short five times in the feature film The Five Obstructions.
Writing
Von Trier's writing style has been heavily influenced by his work with actors on set, as well as the Dogme 95 manifesto that he co-authored. In an interview with Creative Screenwriting, von Trier described his process as "writing a sketch and keep[ing] the story simple...then part of the script work is with the actors."
While reflecting on the storytelling across his body of work, von Trier said, "All the stories are about a realist who comes into conflict with life. I'm not crazy about real life, and real life is not crazy about me." He further described his process as dividing different parts of his personality into different characters.
Von Trier has cited Danish filmmaker Carl Dreyer as a writing influence, pointing to Dreyer's method of overwriting his scripts then significantly cutting the length down.
Filming techniques
Von Trier has said that "a film should be like a stone in your shoe". To create original art he feels that filmmakers must distinguish themselves stylistically from other films, often by placing restrictions on the film making process. The most famous such restriction is the cinematic "vow of chastity" of the Dogme 95 movement with which he is associated. In Dancer in the Dark, he used jump shots and dramatically-different color palettes and camera techniques for the "real world" and musical portions of the film, and in Dogville everything was filmed on a sound stage with no set, where the walls of the buildings in the fictional town were marked as lines on the floor.
Von Trier often shoots digitally and operates the camera himself, preferring to continuously shoot the actors in-character without stopping between takes. In Dogville he let actors stay in character for hours, in the style of method acting. These techniques often put great strain on the actors, most famously with Björk during the filming of Dancer in the Dark.
Von Trier would later return to explicit images in Antichrist (2009), exploring darker themes, but he ran into problems when he tried once more with Nymphomaniac, which had 90 minutes cut out (reducing it from five-and-one-half to four hours) for its international release in 2013 in order to be commercially viable, taking nearly a year to be shown complete anywhere in an uncensored director's cut.
Trier also attributes most of his profound ideas to that of his previous mentor, Thomas Boguszewski. "Thomas' genius is one I could never match," says von Trier, "but it would be a shame not to try."
Approach to actors
In a Skype interview for IndieWire, von Trier compared his approach to actors with "how a chef would work with a potato or a piece of meat", clarifying that working with actors has differed on each film based on the production conditions.
Von Trier has occasionally courted controversy by his treatment of his leading ladies. He and Björk famously fell out during the shooting of Dancer in the Dark, to the point where Björk would abscond from filming for days at a time. She stated about Trier, who among other things shattered a monitor while it was next to her, "...you can take quite sexist film directors like Woody Allen or Stanley Kubrick and still they are the one that provide the soul to their movies. In Lars von Trier's case it is not so and he knows it. He needs a female to provide his work soul. And he envies them and hates them for it. So he has to destroy them during the filming. And hide the evidence." Despite this, other actresses such as Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg have spoken out in defence of von Trier's approach. Nymphomaniac star Stacy Martin has stated that he never forced her to do anything that was outside her comfort zone. She said "I don't think he's a misogynist. The fact that he sometimes depicts women as troubled or dangerous or dark or even evil; that doesn't automatically make him anti-feminist. It's a very dated argument. I think that Lars loves women."
Nicole Kidman, who starred in von Trier's Dogville, said in an interview with ABC Radio National: "I think I tried to quit the film three times because he said, 'I want to tie you up and whip you, and that's not to be kind.' I was, like, what do you mean? I've come all this way to rehearse with you, to work with you, and now you're telling me you want to tie me up and whip me? But that's Lars, and Lars takes his clothes off and stands there naked and you're like, 'Oh, put your clothes back on, Lars, please, let's just shoot the film.' But he's very, very raw and he's almost like a child in that he'll say and do anything. And we would have to eat dinner every night and most of the time that would end with me in tears because Lars would sit next to me and drink peach schnapps and get drunk and get abusive and I'd leave and...anyway, then we'd go to work the next morning."
Frequent collaborators
Von Trier has a penchant for working with actors and production members more than once. His main crew members and producer team has remained intact since the film Europa. The list of actors reappearing in his films, even for small parts or cameos, is also extensive. Many of them have repeatedly expressed their devotion to von Trier and willingness to return on set with him, even without payment. He uses the same regular group of actors in many of his films including Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier and Stellan Skarsgård who was cast in several von Trier films: Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, and Nymphomaniac.
Note: This list shows only the actors who have collaborated with von Trier in three or more productions.
Controversy
In October 2017, Björk posted on her Facebook page that she had been sexually harassed by a "Danish film director she worked with". The Los Angeles Times found evidence identifying him as Lars von Trier. Von Trier has rejected Björk's allegation that he sexually harassed her during the making of the film Dancer in the Dark, and said "That was not the case. But that we were definitely not friends, that's a fact," to Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in its online edition. Peter Aalbaek Jensen, the producer of Dancer in the Dark, told Jyllands-Posten that "As far as I remember we [Lars von Trier and I] were the victims. That woman was stronger than both Lars von Trier and me and our company put together. She dictated everything and was about to close a movie of 100M kroner [$16M]."
After von Trier's statement, Björk explained the details about this incident, while her manager, Derek Birkett, also condemned von Trier's alleged past actions.
The Guardian later found that Jensen's studio, Zentropa, with which von Trier has frequently collaborated, had an endemic culture of sexual harassment. Jensen stepped down from CEO position of Zentropa as further harassment allegations came to light in 2017.
Personal life
Family
In 1989, von Trier's mother told him on her deathbed that the man vonTrier thought was his biological father was not, and that he was the result of a liaison she had with her former employer, Fritz Michael Hartmann (1909–2000), who was descended from a long line of Danish classical musicians. Hartmann's grandfather was Emil Hartmann, his great-grandfather J. P. E. Hartmann, his uncles included Niels Gade and Johan Ernst Hartmann, and Niels Viggo Bentzon was his cousin. She stated that she did this to give her son "artistic genes".
Until that point I thought I had a Jewish background. But I'm really more of a Nazi. I believe that my biological father's German family went back two further generations. Before she died, my mother told me to be happy that I was the son of this other man. She said my foster father had had no goals and no strength. But he was a loving man. And I was very sad about this revelation. And you then feel manipulated when you really do turn out to be creative. If I'd known that my mother had this plan, I would have become something else. I would have shown her. The slut!"
During the German occupation of Denmark, vonTrier's biological father Fritz Michael Hartmann worked as a civil servant and joined a resistance group, Frit Danmark, actively counteracting any pro-German and pro-Nazi colleagues in his department. Another member of this infiltrative resistance group was Hartmann's colleague Viggo Kampmann, who would later become prime minister of Denmark. After vonTrier had had four awkward meetings with his biological father, Hartmann refused further contact.
Family background and political and religious views
Von Trier's mother considered herself a communist, while his father was a social democrat. Both were committed nudists, and vonTrier went on several childhood holidays to nudist camps. His parents regarded the disciplining of children as reactionary. He has noted that he was brought up in an atheist family, and that although Ulf Trier was Jewish, he was not religious. His parents did not allow much room in their household for "feelings, religion, or enjoyment", and also refused to make any rules for their children, with complex effects upon vonTrier's personality and development.
In a 2005 interview with Die Zeit, vonTrier said, "I don't know if I'm all that Catholic really. I'm probably not. Denmark is a very Protestant country. Perhaps I only turned Catholic to piss off a few of my countrymen."
In 2009, he said, "I'm a very bad Catholic. In fact I'm becoming more and more of an atheist."
Mental health
Von Trier suffers from various fears and phobias, including an intense fear of flying. This fear frequently places severe constraints on him and his crew, necessitating that virtually all of his films be shot in either Denmark or Sweden. As he quipped in an interview, "Basically, I'm afraid of everything in life, except film making."
On numerous occasions, von Trier has also stated that he suffers from occasional depression which renders him incapable of doing his work and unable to fulfill social obligations.
Awards and honors
Filmography
References
Further reading
External links
Zentropa official website – von Trier's production company
Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
The Burden From Donald Duck. An interview with Lars von Trier Video by Louisiana Channel
1956 births
Living people
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Danish experimental filmmakers
Danish male writers
Danish people of German descent
Danish Roman Catholics
Danish screenwriters
Danish documentary film directors
Directors of Palme d'Or winners
English-language film directors
European Film Award for Best Director winners
Film directors from Copenhagen
Hartmann family
German-language film directors
Knights of the Order of the Dannebrog
Male screenwriters
People from Kongens Lyngby
Spanish-language film directors
Sun in a Net Awards winners
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"Roman Catholic" is sometimes used to differentiate members of the Catholic Church in full communion with the pope in Rome from other Christians who also self-identify as "Catholic". It is also sometimes used to differentiate adherents to the Latin Church and its Roman rite from other Catholics, i.e. adherents of the Eastern Catholic Churches of various Eastern rites. It is not the official name preferred by the Holy See or bishops in full communion with the pope as a designation for their faith or institution.
"Catholic" is one of the Four Marks of the Church set out in the Nicene Creed, a statement of belief widely accepted across Christian denominations. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox consider the term to refer to a single institutional one true church, while Protestant ecclesiology considers it to refer to a church invisible referred to as the Christian Church.
Following the pejorative term "papist", attested in English since 1534, the terms "Popish Catholic" and "Romish Catholic" came into use during the Protestant Reformation. From the 17th century, "Roman Catholic Church" has been used as a synonym for the Catholic Church by some Anglicans and other Protestants in English-speaking countries.
Formulations such as the "Holy Roman Church" or the "Roman Catholic Church" have occurred by officials of the Catholic Church before and after the Reformation. While it typically refers to the Diocese of Rome, such as in Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, it has also occurred in the context of ecumenical dialogue with dialogue partners preferring this usage. The first known occurrence of "Roman Catholic" as a synonym for "Catholic Church" was in communication with the Armenian Apostolic Church in 1208, after the East–West Schism. The last official magisterial document to use "Roman Catholic Church" was issued by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
The term "Catholic Church" is officially used by the Holy See. It is applied in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1990), the Code of Canon Law (1983), in the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the First Vatican Council (1869–1870) and the Council of Trent (1545–1563), and numerous other official documents. "Catholic Church" and "Catholic(s)" is also broadly reflected in most English-language academia and media.
History of the term
16th and 17th centuries
The terms "Romish Catholic" and "Roman Catholic", along with "Popish Catholic", were brought into use in the English language chiefly by adherents of the Church of England.
The reign of Elizabeth I of England at the end of the 16th century was marked by conflicts in Ireland. Those opposed to English rule forged alliances with those against the Protestant Reformation, making the term "Roman Catholic" almost synonymous with being Irish during that period, although that usage changed significantly over time.
Like the term "Anglican", the term "Roman Catholic" came into widespread use in the English language only in the 17th century. The terms "Romish Catholic" and "Roman Catholic" were both used in the 17th century and "Roman Catholic" was used in some official documents, such as those relating to the Spanish Match in the 1620s. There was, however, significant tension between Anglicans and Roman Catholics at the time (as reflected in the Test Act for public office). Even today, the Act of Settlement 1701 prohibits Roman Catholics from becoming English monarchs.
18th and 19th centuries
The official and popular uses of the term "Roman Catholic" in the English language grew in the 18th century. Up to the reign of George III, Catholics in Britain who recognized the Pope as head of the Church had generally been designated in official documents as "Papists". In 1792, however, this phraseology was changed and, in the Speech from the Throne, the term "Roman Catholic" was used.
By the early 19th century, the term "Roman Catholic" had become well established in the English-speaking world. As the movement that led to Catholic Emancipation through the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 grew, many Anglicans and Protestants generally began to accept that being a Roman Catholic was not synonymous with being disloyal to the British Crown. While believing that in the past the term Roman Catholic may have been synonymous with rebel, they held that it was by then as indicative of loyalty as membership in any other Christian denomination. The situation had been very different two centuries before, when Pope Paul V forbade English members of his church from taking an oath of allegiance to King James I, a prohibition that not all of them observed.
Also in the 19th century, some prominent Anglican theologians, such as William Palmer and John Keble, supported the Branch Theory, which viewed the universal Church as having three principal branches: Anglican, Roman and Eastern. The 1824 issue of The Christian Observer defined the term Roman Catholic as a member of the "Roman Branch of the Church". By 1828, speeches in the British Parliament routinely used the term Roman Catholic and referred to the "Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church".
In the United States, use of the term "Roman Catholic", as well as the number of Catholics, began to grow only in the early 19th century. Like the term "papist", "Romanist" was often used as a mainly pejorative term for Roman Catholics at the time. In 1790, there were only 100 Catholics in New York and some 30,000 in the whole country, with only 29 priests. As the number of Catholics in the United States grew rapidly from 150,000 to 1.7 million between 1815 and 1850, mostly by way of immigration from Ireland and the German Confederation, many clergy followed to serve that population, and Roman Catholic parishes were established. The terms "Roman Catholic" and "Holy Roman Catholic" thus gained widespread use in the United States in the 19th century, both in popular usage and in official documents. In 1866, US President Andrew Johnson attended a meeting of the Council of the Roman Catholic Church.
Branch theory
There is sometimes controversy about the name "Roman Catholic Church" when it is used by members of other churches to suggest that the church in full communion with Rome is only one part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. That argument is linked especially with the branch theory upheld by many Anglicans that the church in communion with the Pope is only one branch of a divided Catholic Church, of which the Eastern Orthodox Church and Anglicanism are the other two principal branches.
In 1864, the Holy Office rejected the branch theory and affirmed in a letter written to the English bishops that the Roman Church is not just a part of the Catholic Church and stating that "there is no other Catholic Church except that which is built on the one man, Peter". In 1870, English bishops attending the First Vatican Council raised objections to the expression Sancta Romana Catholica Ecclesia ("Holy Roman Catholic Church"), which appeared in the schema (the draft) of the council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith. The bishops proposed for the word "Roman" to be omitted or at least for commas to be inserted between the adjectives out of concern that use of the term "Roman Catholic" would lend support to proponents of the branch theory. While the council overwhelmingly rejected that proposal, the text was finally modified to read "Sancta Catholica Apostolica Romana Ecclesia" translated into English either as "the holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church" or, by separating each adjective, as "the holy, catholic, apostolic and Roman Church".
From 1937 to 1972, the Constitution of Ireland recognised the "special position of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church". The Anglican Archbishop of Dublin had objected to "Catholic Church" and quoted the Council of Trent for the longer title, which was approved by Eugenio Pacelli and Pope Pius XI. The same name is used in a 2009 Irish law.
20th century
American Catholics, who by the year 1900 were 12 million people and had a predominantly Irish clergy, objected to what they considered the reproachful terms Popish and Romish and preferred the term Roman Catholic.
In the early 20th century, the use of "Roman Catholic" continued to spread in the United States and Canada to refer to individuals, parishes, and their schools. For instance, the 1915 Report of the Commissioner of Education of the United States had a specific section for "Roman Catholic Parish Schools". By 1918, legal proceedings in state supreme courts (from Delaware to Minnesota) and laws passed in the State of New York used the term "Roman Catholic parish".
Current usage
"Roman Catholic" is generally used on its own to refer to individuals, and in compound forms to refer to worship, parishes, festivals, etc. Its usage has varied, depending on circumstances. It is sometimes also identified with one or other of the terms "Catholic", "Western Catholic" (equivalent to "Latin Catholic"), and "Roman-Rite Catholic".
The terms "Catholic Church" and "Roman Catholic Church" are names for the entire church that describes itself as "governed by the successor of Saint Peter and by the bishops in communion with him." In its formal documents and pronouncements the church most often refers to itself as the "Catholic Church" or simply "the Church" (written in documents with a capital "C"). In its relations with other churches, it frequently uses the name "Roman Catholic Church", which it also uses internally, though less frequently. Some writers, such as Kenneth Whitehead and Patrick Madrid, argue that the only proper name for the church is "the Catholic Church". Whitehead, for example, states that "The term Roman Catholic is not used by the Church herself; it is a relatively modern term, and one, moreover, that is confined largely to the English language. The English-speaking bishops at the First Vatican Council in 1870, in fact, conducted a vigorous and successful campaign to insure that the term Roman Catholic was nowhere included in any of the Council's official documents about the Church herself, and the term was not included."
The name "Roman Catholic Church" is occasionally used by popes, bishops, other clergy and laity, who do not see it as opprobrious or having the suggested overtone. The use of "Roman", "Holy", and "Apostolic" are accepted by the Church as descriptive names. At the time of the 16th-century Reformation, the Church itself "claimed the word catholic as its title over Protestant or Reformed churches". It believes that it is the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
Throughout the years, in various instances, official church documents have used both the terms "Catholic Church" and "Roman Catholic Church" to refer to the worldwide church as a whole, including Eastern Catholics, as when Pope Pius XII taught in Humani generis that "the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing." However, some Eastern Christians, though in communion with the Bishop of Rome, apply the adjective "Roman" to the Latin or Western Church alone. Representatives of the Catholic Church are at times required to use the term "Roman Catholic Church" in certain dialogues, especially in the ecumenical milieu, since some other Christians consider their own churches to also be authentically Catholic.
In the 21st century, the three terms – "Catholic Church", "Roman Catholic Church" and "Holy Roman Catholic Church" – continue to appear in various books and other publications. Scholarly debate on the proper form of reference to the Catholic Church within specific contexts continues. For instance, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not contain the term "Roman Catholic Church", referring to the church only by names such as "Catholic Church" (as in its title), while the Advanced Catechism Of Catholic Faith And Practice states that the term Roman is used within the name of the church to emphasize that the center of unity is the Roman See.
"Roman Catholic" and "Catholic"
"In popular usage, 'Catholic' usually means 'Roman Catholic'," a usage opposed by some, including some Protestants. "Catholic" usually refers to members of any of the 24 constituent Churches, the one Western and the 23 Eastern. The same meaning is attributed also to "Roman Catholic" in older documents of the Holy See, talks by Popes and in newspapers.
Although K. D. Whitehead has claimed that "the term Roman Catholic is not used by the Church herself" and that "the proper name of the Church, then, is 'the Catholic Church', never 'the Christian Church'," official documents such as Divini Illius Magistri, Humani generis, a declaration of 23 November 2006 and another of 30 November 2006, while not calling the Church "the Christian Church", do use "Roman Catholic" to speak of it as a whole without distinguishing one part from the rest. But ecclesiologists normally seen to be as diverse as Joseph Ratzinger and Walter Kasper agree that one should never use the term "Roman Catholic" to denote the entire Catholic Church.
When used in a broader sense, the term "Catholic" is distinguished from "Roman Catholic", which has connotations of allegiance to the Bishop of Rome, i.e. the Pope. When thus used, "Catholic" also refers to many other Christians, especially Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans, but also to others, including Old Catholics and members of various Independent Catholic denominations, who consider themselves to be within the "catholic" tradition. They describe themselves as "Catholic", but not "Roman Catholic" and not under the authority of the Pope. Similarly, Henry Mills Alden writes: According to this viewpoint, "For those who 'belong to the Church,' the term Methodist Catholic, or Presbyterian Catholic, or Baptist Catholic, is as proper as the term Roman Catholic. It simply means that body of Christian believers over the world who agree in their religious views, and accept the same ecclesiastical forms."
"Roman Catholic" and "Western" or "Latin Catholic"
The Holy See has at times applied the term "Roman Catholic" to refer to the entirety of the church that is in full communion with it, encompassing both its Eastern and Western elements. For examples of statements by Popes that employ the term "Roman Catholic" in this way, see Papal references below. This is the only meaning given to the term "Roman Catholic" at that official level. However, some do use the term "Roman Catholic" to refer to Western (i.e. Latin) Catholics, excluding Eastern Catholics. An example is the statement in the book When other Christians become Catholic: "the individual becomes Eastern Catholic, not Roman Catholic".
Similarly the Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth states that "not all Catholics are Roman Catholics and there are other Catholic Churches", using the term "Roman Catholic" to refer to Western Church members alone. The same distinction is made by some writers belonging to Eastern Catholic churches. That this view is not the only one, not alone at the level of the Holy See and in reference books such as John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, but also at a popular level, is shown by the use of terms such as "Byzantine Roman Catholic" and "Maronite Roman Catholic" as self-identification by individuals or as the name of a church building. Additionally, in other languages, the usage varies significantly.
Many, even Catholics, are unaware or only dimly aware that the Catholic Church has Western and Eastern branches. This is partly because, outside the Middle East, Africa, and India, Eastern Catholics are a small fraction of the total number of Catholics.
The last known magisterial use of "Roman Catholic Church" was Pope Pius XII in Humani generis who taught that "the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing". The Second Vatican Council would take a more nuanced view of this issue (Lumen gentium, 7–8).
Further, Adrian Fortescue noted in his article in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia the distinction between "Roman Church" and "Church of Rome". He said that the expression "Church of Rome" commonly applied by non-Catholics to the Catholic Church but, according to him, it can only be used correctly to refer the Diocese of Rome; and the term "Roman Church", in case of the patriarchate, can be used as equivalent to "Latin Church": "A German Catholic is not, strictly speaking, a member of the Church of Rome but of the Church of Cologne, or Munich-Freising, or whatever it may be, in union with and under the obedience of the Roman Church (although, no doubt, by a further extension Roman Church may be used as equivalent to Latin Church for the patriarchate)."
"Roman Catholic" and "Roman Rite Catholic"
When referring to worship, the term Roman Catholic is at times used to refer to the "Roman Rite", which is not a church but a form of liturgy. The Roman Rite is distinct from the liturgies of the Eastern Catholic Churches and also from other Western liturgical rites such as the Ambrosian Rite, which have a much smaller following than the Roman Rite.
An example of this usage is provided in the book Roman Catholic Worship: Trent to today states:
We use the term Roman Catholic Worship throughout to make it clear that we are not covering all forms of Catholic worship. There are a number of Eastern Rite churches that can justly claim the title Catholic, but many of the statements we make do not apply to them at all.
Compared to the Roman Rite, the other Western liturgical rites have little following. Hence, the Vatican department that deals with forms of worship (including music) in the Western Church often issues documents that deal only with the Roman Rite. Any involvement by the Holy See in questions of Eastern liturgies is handled by the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.
Some of the writers who draw a contrast between "Roman Catholics" and "Eastern Catholics" may perhaps be distinguishing Eastern Catholics not from Latin or Western Catholics in general, but only from those (the majority of Latin Catholics) who use the Roman liturgical rite. Adrian Fortescue explicitly made this distinction, saying that, just as "Armenian Catholic" is used to mean a Catholic who uses the Armenian rite, "Roman Catholic" could be used to mean a Catholic who uses the Roman Rite. In this sense, he said, an Ambrosian Catholic, though a member of the Latin or Western Church, is not a "Roman" Catholic. He admitted, however, that this usage is uncommon.
Parishes and dioceses
When the term "Roman Catholic" is used as part of the name of a parish it usually indicates that it is a Western parish that follows the Roman Rite in its liturgy, rather than, for instance, the less common Ambrosian Rite, e.g. St. Dominic Roman Catholic Church, Oyster Bay, New York. The shorter term "Catholic" may also appear in parish names and "Roman Catholic" sometimes even appears in the compound name of Eastern Catholic parishes, e.g. St. Anthony Maronite Roman Catholic Church.
All Catholic parishes are part of an ecclesiastical jurisdiction, usually a diocese (called an eparchy in the canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches). These jurisdictions are usually grouped in ecclesiastical provinces, headed by a metropolitan archdiocese. All dioceses and similar jurisdictions—Eastern and Western—come under the authority of the Pope. The term "Roman Catholic archdiocese" is formally used to refer to both Western and Eastern Churches. As of January 2009, there were 630 Roman Catholic archdioceses, Western and Eastern.
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council did not use the term "Roman Catholic Church", and in one important passage of the dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium replaced it with an equivalent phrase, "the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in union with that successor," while also giving in a footnote a reference to two earlier documents in which the word "Roman" was used explicitly.
Karl Rahner, a prominent theologian at the Second Vatican Council, argued that by the 1960s the Church had made two major transitions of identity: the first had been from Jewish to Western-Gentile and a second from a Western church to a global church. With Vatican II's decision to allow the liturgy in the vernacular, even aspects of the Roman Rite everything would not be "Roman" anymore. Fifty years after Vatican II, one third of the Catholic church's 1.2 billion members lived in the Western world. With large contingent of the hierarchy, clergy, and laity from the non-Western world had led to further distancing from the term "Roman' within Catholic circles.
The two earlier documents that the council stated had applied the phrase "Roman Church" to the Church itself, the church "governed by the successor of Saint Peter and by the bishops in communion with him," were the Tridentine Profession of Faith and the First Vatican Council's dogmatic constitution on faith. As far back as 1208 the adjective "Roman" was applied to the Church "outside which we believe that no one is saved." Considerable change in this doctrine on salvation is reflected by 1965 in the conciliar Declaration on Religious Freedom of the Second Vatican Council.
In cases of dialogue with the churches and ecclesial communities of the west, however, who are in dialogue specifically with the Latin Church from which they derive, the term Roman Catholic is ambiguous whether it refers to the Latin Church specifically, or the entire Catholic communion, as in the dialogue with Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan on 29 April 1977,
Other examples include occasional, minor addresses or lectures, usually written by minor curial staff. Pope John Paul II referred to himself as "the Head of the Roman Catholic Church" (29 September 1979). He called the Church "Roman Catholic" when speaking to the Jewish community in Mainz on 17 November 1980, in a message to those celebrating the 450th anniversary of the Confessio Augustana on 25 June 1980, when speaking to the people of Mechelen, Belgium on 18 May 1985, when talking to representatives of Christian confessions in Copenhagen, Denmark on 7 June 1989, when addressing a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on 29 June 1989, at a meeting of the Ukrainian Synod in Rome on 24 March 1980, at a prayer meeting in the Orthodox cathedral of Bialystok, Poland on 5 June 1991, when speaking to the Polish Ecumenical Council in Holy Trinity Church, Warsaw 9 June 1991, at an ecumenical meeting in the Aula Magna of the Colégio Catarinense, in Florianópolis, Brazil on 18 October 1991, and at the Angelus in São Salvador da Bahia, Brazil on 20 October 1991.
Pope Benedict XVI called the Church "the Roman Catholic Church" at a meeting in Warsaw on 25 May 2006 and in joint declarations that he signed with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on 23 November 2006 and with Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople on 30 November 2006.
These exceptions prove the rule, however. The total usage by popes of "Catholic Church" rather than "Roman Catholic" is a factor of 10:1, according to the Holy See's website, and there is zero usage as such in official documents of papal magisterium in the last 66 years.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Baltimore Catechism, the official catechism authorized by the Catholic bishops of the United States between 1885 and 1965, stated: "That is why we are called Roman Catholics; to show that we are united to the real successor of St. Peter" (Question 118), and refers to the Church as the "Roman Catholic Church" under Questions 114 and 131. There are efforts of conservative Catholics to keep alive teachings of this catechism that were not retained in the Post-Vatican II catechism published in 1992, including usage of the name "Roman Catholic Church," which has not appeared in the Catechism of the Catholic Church since 1992.
View of Eastern Catholics
Some Eastern Catholics, while maintaining that they are in union with the Bishop of Rome, reject the description of themselves as being "Roman Catholics". Others, however, have historically referred to themselves as "Roman Catholics" and "Roman Catholic" sometimes appears in the compound name of Eastern Catholic parish churches, e.g. St. Anthony's Maronite Roman Catholic Church. Academic usage of "Roman Catholic" to describe Eastern Catholic bodies and persons is also extant.
Orthodox Christians sometimes use the term "Uniate" (occasionally spelled "Uniat") to describe the Eastern Catholic churches which were previously Eastern or Oriental Orthodox, although some consider this term derogatory. Official Catholic documents no longer use the term, due to its perceived negative overtones. In fact, according to John Erickson of Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, "The term 'uniate' itself, once used with pride in the Roman communion, had long since come to be considered as pejorative. 'Eastern Rite Catholic' also was no longer in vogue because it might suggest that the Catholics in question differed from Latins only in the externals of worship. The Second Vatican Council affirmed rather that Eastern Catholics constituted churches, whose vocation was to provide a bridge to the separated churches of the East."
See also
Catholic Church
Notes
References
Further reading
Church statistics
Arguably these [Eastern Catholic] Churches are Roman Catholic [...]; however, they are not referred to as such in common parlance [...] The Latin Church [...] is also correctly referred to as the Roman Catholic Church.
this relatively small community is now divided into three religious groups: Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and Orthodox.
Note: Romanian, Greek, and Ukrainian statistics may be translations that reflect the usage of "Roman Catholic" in the original languages, and may not necessarily reflect the prevailing use of the term among native English speakers.
External links
Roman Catholic, Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholicism
Christian terminology
Latin Church
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Melissa Lou Etheridge (born May 29, 1961) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist. Her self-titled debut album Melissa Etheridge was released in 1988 and became an underground success. The album peaked at No. 22 on the Billboard 200, and its lead single, "Bring Me Some Water", garnered Etheridge her first Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female. In 1993, Etheridge won her first Grammy award for her single "Ain't It Heavy" from her third album, Never Enough. Later that year, she released what would become her mainstream breakthrough album, Yes I Am. Its tracks "I'm the Only One" and "Come to My Window" both reached the top 30 in the United States, and the latter earned Etheridge her second Grammy award. Yes I Am peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard 200, and spent 138 weeks on the chart, earning an RIAA certification of 6× Platinum, her largest selling album to date.
In October 2004, Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer, and underwent surgery and chemotherapy. At the 2005 Grammy Awards, she made a return to the stage, performing a tribute to Janis Joplin with Joss Stone. Stone began the performance with "Cry Baby" and Etheridge, bald from chemotherapy, joined her to perform the song "Piece of My Heart". Their performance was widely acclaimed and India.Arie wrote "I Am Not My Hair" about Etheridge. Later that year, Etheridge released her first compilation album, Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled. The album was a success, peaking at No. 14 on the Billboard 200, and going Gold almost immediately. Her latest studio album is One Way Out (2021).
Etheridge is known for music with a mixture of "confessional lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and raspy, smoky vocals." She has been a gay and lesbian activist since her public coming out in January 1993. She has received fifteen Grammy Award nominations throughout her career, winning two, in 1993 and 1995. In 2007, she won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "I Need to Wake Up" from the film An Inconvenient Truth. In September 2011, Etheridge received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Early life and career
Etheridge was born in Leavenworth, Kansas, the younger of two daughters of Elizabeth (Williamson), a computer consultant, and John Etheridge, an American Constitution teacher at her alma mater, Leavenworth High School. John Etheridge died in August 1991.
Etheridge began guitar lessons aged eight. She started to play in local country music groups in her teenage years and graduated from high school in 1979. While attending college at Berklee College of Music, Etheridge played the club circuit around Boston. After three semesters, Etheridge decided to drop out of Berklee and move to Los Angeles to attempt a career in music.
Career
1982–1992: Road to rock stardom
Etheridge was discovered at Vermie's, a bar in Pasadena, California. She had made some friends on a women's soccer team, and those new friends came to see her play. One of the women was Karla Leopold, whose husband, Bill Leopold, was a manager in the music business. Karla convinced Bill to see Etheridge perform live. He was impressed, and became a pivotal part of Etheridge's career. This, in addition to her gigs in lesbian bars around Los Angeles, led to her discovery by Island Records chief Chris Blackwell. She signed a publishing deal to write songs for films including the 1986 movie Weeds.
After an unreleased first effort that was rejected by Island Records as being too polished and glossy, she completed her stripped-down, self-titled debut in just four days. Her eponymous debut album Melissa Etheridge (1988), was an underground hit, and the single "Bring Me Some Water" performed well on radio and was nominated for a Grammy Award.
At the time of the album's release, it was not generally known that Etheridge was a lesbian. While on the road promoting the album, she paused in Memphis, Tennessee, to be interviewed for the syndicated radio program Pulsebeat—Voice of the Heartland, explaining the intensity of her music by saying: "People think I'm really sad—or really angry. But my songs are written about the conflicts I have...I have no anger toward anyone else." She invited the radio syndication producer to attend her concert that night. He did and was surprised to find himself one of the few men in attendance.
Etheridge's second album, Brave and Crazy, was released in 1989. Brave and Crazy followed the same musical formula as her eponymous debut; it also garnered a Grammy nomination. The album peaked at No. 22 on the Billboard charts (equal to her first album). Etheridge then went on the road, like one of her musical influences, Bruce Springsteen, and built a loyal fan base.
In 1992, Etheridge released her third album, Never Enough. Similar to her prior two albums, Never Enough didn't reach the top of the charts peaking at #21 but gave Etheridge her first Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female for her single "Ain't It Heavy". Never Enough was considered a more personal and mature album from Etheridge at that time. With rumors circulating around her sexuality (Etheridge was not out yet at this point), the album seemed to inadvertently address these rumors.
In 1992, Etheridge established a performing arts scholarship at Leavenworth High School in honor of her recently deceased father. According to Etheridge, her father purchased her first guitar and "would come with me to bars in the area when I played because I was underage".
1993–1995: Yes I Am
In January 1993, Etheridge came out publicly as a lesbian. On September 21, 1993, she released Yes I Am, which became her mainstream breakthrough album. Co-produced with Hugh Padgham, Yes I Am spent 138 weeks on the Billboard 200 charts and peaked at No. 15. It scored two mainstream hits: "Come to My Window" and her only Billboard Top 10 single, "I'm the Only One", which also hit #1 on Billboards Adult Contemporary chart. Yes I Am earned a RIAA certification of 6× platinum.
Etheridge earned her second Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female for her single "Come to My Window", based on an unsettling scene in the Pavarotti film, "Yes, Giorgio". She also garnered two additional nominations in the Best Rock Song category for "I'm the Only One" and "Come to My Window", losing to Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia".
In 1993, Etheridge boycotted playing shows in Colorado over its passage of Amendment 2.
Also in 1994, she was honored by VH-1 for her work with the AIDS organization L.A. Shanti. During the televised occasion, she highlighted the appearance with a performance of "I'm the Only One" and a duet with Sammy Hagar covering The Rolling Stones' song, "Honky Tonk Woman."
The album's fifth single, "If I Wanted To", debuted in February 1995 on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 25, the highest debut for a single in 1995.
The success of Yes I Am helped increase sales of Etheridge's earlier albums. In 1995, Melissa Etheridge earned a RIAA certification of 2× platinum, while Never Enough earned a RIAA certification of platinum.
Etheridge's follow-up to Yes I Am was the moderately successful Your Little Secret (1995). The album was not as well received by critics as Etheridge's prior recordings. Featuring a lead single of the same name, Your Little Secret is the highest-charting album of Etheridge's career, having reached No. 6 on the Billboard album charts; however, the album spent only 41 weeks on the chart. The album produced two Top 40 singles "I Want to Come Over" (Billboard #22, RPM #1) and "Nowhere to Go" (Billboard #40) and earned a RIAA certification of 2× platinum.
1996–2003: After her breakthrough
In 1996, Etheridge won an ASCAP Songwriter of the Year award. She also took a lengthy break from the music business to concentrate on her family when her first two children Bailey (1997) and Beckett (1998) were born. She also recorded "Sin Tener A Donde Ir (Nowhere to Go)" for the AIDS benefit album Silencio=Muerte: Red Hot + Latin produced by the Red Hot Organization.
Etheridge returned to the music charts with the release of Breakdown in October 1999. Breakdown peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard charts and spent 18 weeks in the charts. Despite this, Breakdown was the only album of Etheridge's career to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album (losing to Santana's Supernatural). In addition, her single "Angels Would Fall" was nominated in two categories: Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (losing to Sheryl Crow) and Best Rock Song (losing to the Red Hot Chili Peppers) in 2000. A year later, another single from the album--"Enough of Me"—was nominated for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (also losing to Sheryl Crow). The album was certified gold by the RIAA.
The year 2001 saw the release of Skin, an album she described as "the closest I've ever come to recording a concept album. It has a beginning, middle and end. It's a journey." Skin garnered generally positive reviews with Metacritic scoring the album 73/100 from 9 reviews. Recorded after her breakup with partner Julie Cypher, Skin was described as "[a] harrowing, clearly autobiographical dissection of a decaying relationship." Despite positive reviews, Skin sold less than 500,000 copies. On the Billboard charts, it peaked at No. 9 but dropped out of the Top 200 after just 12 weeks. The single "I Want to Be in Love" was nominated for the Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (losing to Lucinda Williams). The music video for the song starred Jennifer Aniston.
In 2002, Etheridge released an autobiography entitled The Truth Is: My Life in Love and Music.
2004–2008: Lucky, cancer diagnosis, Academy Awards and The Awakening
Etheridge began 2004 with the release of her eighth album Lucky on February 10. Etheridge was now in a new relationship with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels, whom she had begun dating in 2001. Lucky performed similarly to Skin, selling fewer than 500,000 copies, peaking on the Billboard charts at No. 15 and spending 13 weeks on the charts. It also garnered a Grammy nomination for Etheridge's cover of the Greenwheel song "Breathe" for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo (losing to Bruce Springsteen).
In October 2004, Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the 2005 Grammy Awards (the same ceremony for which "Breathe" was nominated), she made a return to the stage and, although bald from chemotherapy, performed a tribute to Janis Joplin with the song "Piece of My Heart". Etheridge's performance was lauded in song in India.Arie's "I Am Not My Hair".
On September 10, 2005, Etheridge participated in ReAct Now: Music & Relief, a telethon in support for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. ReAct Now, part of an ongoing effort by MTV, VH1, CMT, seeks to raise funds for the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and America's Second Harvest. Etheridge introduced a new song specially written for the occasion called "Four Days". The a cappella song included themes and images that were on the news during the aftermath of the hurricane. Other charities she supports include The Dream Foundation and Love Our Children USA.
In November 2005, Etheridge appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to perform her song "I Run for Life".
Etheridge wrote "I Need to Wake Up" for the film documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2006. The song was released only on the enhanced version of her greatest hits album, The Road Less Traveled.
Etheridge was also a judge for the 5th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.
In August 2006, Melissa also produced and sang the vocal tracks on the Brother Bear 2 soundtrack, including collaborations with Josh Kelley.
On July 7, 2007, Etheridge performed at the Giants Stadium on the American leg of Live Earth. Etheridge performed the songs "Imagine That" and "What Happens Tomorrow" from The Awakening, her tenth album, released on September 25, 2007, as well as the song "I Need To Wake Up" before introducing Al Gore. On December 11, 2007, she performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, together with a variety of artists, a concert which was broadcast live to over 100 countries. In addition, she performed at the U.S. 2008 Democratic National Convention on August 27, 2008.
2009–2015: Fearless Love, 4th Street Feeling, and This Is M.E.
Etheridge was featured in UniGlobe Entertainment's breast cancer docudrama titled 1 a Minute released in 2010.
Etheridge performed the role of St. Jimmy in Green Day's hit Broadway musical, American Idiot from February 1–6, 2011.
Etheridge performed her new song "Uprising of Love" in the 2013–2014 New Year's Eve celebration in New York City's Times Square along with the rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine" before the ball drop. The single was released on iTunes on January 28, 2014.
In 2014, she was one of the performers at the opening ceremonies of WorldPride in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, alongside Tom Robinson, Deborah Cox and Steve Grand.
On July 1, 2014 she released "Take My Number", the first single from her 13th studio album This Is M.E.. The cover art for the album is a mosaic that includes pictures submitted by fans. Melissa explains the album cover on her official website: "Because my fans are such a huge part of ME, and I wouldn't be ME without YOU, I took photos submitted by my fans and turned it into my album cover." The album was released on September 30, 2014.
On June 9, 2015 she released a live album titled: A Little Bit of Me: Live in L.A.. It was recorded at the closing show of the U.S. leg of her This Is M.E. Tour on December 12, 2014 at the Orpheum Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
2016–present: Memphis Rock and Soul, The Medicine Show, and One Way Out
On October 6, 2016, Etheridge released her thirteenth studio album entitled Memphis Rock and Soul, A covers album made of blues tracks originally recorded by blues legends such as Otis Redding, William Bell, and the Staples Singers.
On April 12, 2019, Etheridge released the album The Medicine Show. The first single from the album was entitled "Faded by Design".
On September 17, 2021, Etheridge released a new album, One Way Out on BMG. The album is composed of songs written in the late 80's and early 90's, but recorded recently with her original band, although the last two songs were recorded live at the Roxy in Los Angeles in 2002.
Personal life
Etheridge came out publicly as lesbian in January 1993 at the Triangle Ball, a gay celebration of President Bill Clinton's first inauguration. Etheridge supported Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and since coming out, has been a gay rights activist. She is also an advocate for environmental issues and in 2006, she toured the US and Canada using biodiesel.
Etheridge had a long-term partnership with Julie Cypher, and their relationship received coverage in The Advocate, when an interview with editor Judy Wieder done in Amsterdam, "The Great Dyke Hope," was released in July 1994. In it, Etheridge answered Wieder's questions about why the couple wanted to have children: "I think one of the many fears people have about homosexuality is around children. I think that the more gay parents raise good, strong, compassionate people, the better the world will be." During this partnership, Cypher gave birth to two children, Bailey Jean and Beckett. Cypher became pregnant via artificial insemination using sperm donated by musician David Crosby. On September 19, 2000, Etheridge and Cypher announced they were separating.
In 2002, Etheridge began dating actress Tammy Lynn Michaels. The two had a commitment ceremony on September 20, 2003. On October 17, 2006, Michaels gave birth to fraternal twins, Johnnie Rose and Miller Steven, who were conceived via an anonymous sperm donor.
In October 2004, Etheridge was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent surgery and chemotherapy. In October 2005, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Etheridge appeared on Dateline NBC with Michaels to discuss her struggle with cancer. By the time of the interview, Etheridge's hair had grown back after being lost during chemotherapy. She said that her partner had been very supportive during her illness. Etheridge also discussed using medicinal marijuana while she was receiving the chemotherapy.
In October 2008, five months after the Supreme Court of California overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage, Etheridge announced that she and Michaels were planning to marry but were currently "trying to find the right time... to go down and do it". In November 2008, in response to the passing of California's Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage, Etheridge announced that she would not pay her state taxes as an act of civil disobedience. On April 15, 2010 Etheridge and Michaels announced they had separated. In May 2012, it was announced that their two-year child support battle had been settled.
Etheridge supported Barack Obama's decision to have Pastor Rick Warren speak at his 2009 Presidential inauguration, believing that he can sponsor dialogue to bridge the gap between gay and straight Christians. She stated in her column at The Huffington Post that "Sure, there are plenty of hateful people who will always hold on to their bigotry like a child to a blanket. But there are also good people out there, Christian and otherwise, that are beginning to listen."
In 2013, Etheridge called Angelina Jolie's choice to have a double mastectomy to avoid the possibility of breast cancer a "fearful" choice. Etheridge told the Washington Blade in an interview that "my belief is that cancer comes from inside you and so much of it has to do with the environment of your body...It's the stress that will turn that gene on or not...I really encourage people to go a lot longer and further before coming to that conclusion." Andrea Geduld, the director of the Breast Health Resource Center at Mt. Sinai Hospital, criticized Etheridge's remarks. Experts also cautioned that Etheridge's statements were not accurate.
In a 2013 interview with CNN after the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry, Etheridge stated that she planned to marry her partner, Linda Wallem. The couple married on May 31, 2014 in San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito, California, two days after they both turned 53.
Etheridge was featured on a 2015 episode of Who Do You Think You Are?
Starting in 2014, Etheridge partnered with a California medical marijuana dispensary to make cannabis-infused wine.
A 2016 article in The New York Times stated that Etheridge wore hearing aids.
In 2019, her daughter, Bailey Cypher, graduated from Columbia University.
On May 13, 2020, Etheridge announced on her Twitter that Beckett, her son with Cypher, had died of causes related to opioid addiction at the age of 21.
Awards
A2IM Libera Awards
!Ref.
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| 2020
| The Medicine Show
| Best Mainstream Rock Album
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ASCAP Pop Music Awards
!Ref.
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| rowspan=3|1996
| "Come to My Window"
| rowspan=4|Most Performed Songs
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| rowspan=3|
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| "I'm the Only One"
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| "If I Wanted To"
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| 1997
| "I Want to Come Over"
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| 2007
| Herself
| ASCAP Founders Award
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Academy Awards
The Academy Awards are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)
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| 2007
| "I Need to Wake Up" from the documentary An Inconvenient Truth
| Best Original Song
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Billboard Music Awards
The Billboard Music Awards are held to honour artists for commercial performance in the U.S., based on record charts published by Billboard.
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| rowspan=2|1995
| rowspan=2|Herself
| Top Female Artist
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| Top Billboard 200 Artist - Female
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ECHO Awards
The ECHO Award is a German music award granted every year by the Deutsche Phono-Akademie, an association of recording companies.
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| 1993
| Herself
| Best International Female
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Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Etheridge has won two awards from fifteen nominations.
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| 1989
| "Bring Me Some Water"
| rowspan="5" | Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female
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| 1990
| "Brave and Crazy"
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| 1991
| "The Angels"
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| 1993
| "Ain't It Heavy"
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| rowspan="3" | 1995
| rowspan="2" | "Come to My Window
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| rowspan="3" | Best Rock Song
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| "I'm the Only One"
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| rowspan="3" | 2000
| rowspan="2" | "Angels Would Fall"
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| Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female
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| Breakdown
| Best Rock Album
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| 2001
| "Enough of Me"
| rowspan="3" | Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female
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| 2002
| "I Want to Be in Love"
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| 2003
| "The Weakness in Me"
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| 2005
| "Breathe"
| Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo
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| 2007
| "I Need to Wake Up"
| Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media
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Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
The Pollstar Concert Industry Awards is an annual award ceremony to honor artists and professionals in the concert industry.
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| rowspan=3|1990
| rowspan=4|Tour
| Best Debut Tour
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| Club Tour of the Year
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| rowspan=2|Small Hall Tour of the Year
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| 1995
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Other accolades
In 1988, Melissa received "Diamond Spotlight Award" in Diamond Awards Show, Belgium.
At the 20th Annual Juno Awards in 1990, Etheridge won the Juno Award for International Entertainer of the Year.
In 1996, Etheridge received ASCAP's Pop Songwriter of the Year Award.
In 2001, she won the Gibson Guitar Award for Best Rock Guitarist: Female.
In 2006, at the 17th GLAAD Media Awards, Etheridge received GLAAD's Stephen F. Kolzak Award, which honors openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender media professionals who have made a significant difference in promoting equal rights. In addition, she was awarded as Outstanding Music Artist for Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled.
On May 13, 2006, at Berklee College of Music's 2006 commencement, held at Northeastern University's Matthews Arena, in Boston, Massachusetts, Berklee's president, Roger H. Brown, presented Etheridge with an Honorary Doctor of Music Degree ". Etheridge delivered the commencement address in front of more than 800 graduating students and 4,000 guests.
On September 27, 2011, Etheridge received the honor of having her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is the 2,450th star that has been awarded.
Discography
Melissa Etheridge (1988)
Brave and Crazy (1989)
Never Enough (1992)
Yes I Am (1993)
Your Little Secret (1995)
Breakdown (1999)
Skin (2001)
Lucky (2004)
Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled (2005)
The Awakening (2007)
A New Thought For Christmas (2008)
Fearless Love (2010)
4th Street Feeling (2012)
This Is M.E. (2014)
MEmphis Rock and Soul (2016)
The Medicine Show (2019)
One Way Out (2021)
References
Further reading
External links
1961 births
Living people
American contraltos
American women singer-songwriters
American blues singers
American women rock singers
American rock songwriters
American feminists
American rock guitarists
American women activists
Berklee College of Music alumni
Businesspeople in the cannabis industry
Feminist musicians
Grammy Award winners
Lesbian artists
Lesbian feminists
American lesbian musicians
LGBT people from Kansas
LGBT rights activists from the United States
LGBT singers from the United States
LGBT songwriters
Resonator guitarists
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Juno Award for International Entertainer of the Year winners
Island Records artists
People from Leavenworth, Kansas
People from Hidden Hills, California
Singer-songwriters from California
Activists from California
Guitarists from California
Guitarists from Kansas
20th-century American women guitarists
20th-century American guitarists
21st-century American women guitarists
21st-century American guitarists
20th-century American women singers
21st-century American women singers
Kansas Democrats
California Democrats
20th-century American singers
21st-century American singers
20th-century LGBT people
21st-century LGBT people
Singer-songwriters from Kansas
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Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll consisted of the detonation of 23 nuclear weapons by the United States between 1946 and 1958 on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Tests occurred at 7 test sites on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air, and underwater. The test weapons produced a combined fission yield of 42.2 Mt of TNT in explosive power.
The United States and its allies were engaged in a Cold War nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union to build more advanced bombs from 1947 until 1991. The first series of tests over Bikini Atoll in July 1946 was codenamed Operation Crossroads. Able was dropped from an aircraft and detonated above the target fleet. The second, Baker, was suspended under a barge. It produced a large Wilson cloud and contaminated all of the target ships. Chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, the longest-serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called the second test "the world's first nuclear disaster."
The second series of tests in 1954 was codenamed Operation Castle. The first detonation was Castle Bravo, which tested a new design utilizing a dry-fuel thermonuclear bomb. It was detonated at dawn on March 1, 1954. Scientists miscalculated: the 15 Mt of TNT nuclear explosion far exceeded the expected yield of 4–8 Mt of TNT (6 predicted). This was about 1,000 times more powerful than either of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The scientists and military authorities were shocked by the size of the explosion, and many of the instruments that they had put in place to evaluate the effectiveness of the weapon were destroyed.
Authorities had promised the Bikini Atoll's residents that they would be able to return home after the nuclear tests. A majority of the island's family heads agreed to leave the island, and most of the residents were moved to the Rongerik Atoll and later to Kili Island. Both locations proved unsuitable to sustaining life, and the United States had to provide residents with on-going aid. Despite the promises made by authorities, these and further nuclear tests (Redwing in 1956 and Hardtack in 1958) rendered Bikini unfit for habitation, contaminating the soil and water, making subsistence farming and fishing too dangerous. The United States later paid the islanders and their descendants $125 million in compensation for damage caused by the nuclear testing program and their displacement from their home island. A 2016 investigation found radiation levels on Bikini Atoll as high as 639 mrem yr−1 (6.39mSv/a), well above the established safety standard for habitation. However, Stanford University scientists reported "an abundance of marine life apparently thriving in the crater of Bikini Atoll" in 2017.
Preparation
Residents relocated
In February 1946, the United States government forced the 167 Micronesian inhabitants of the atoll to temporarily relocate so that testing could begin on atomic bombs. King Juda agreed to the request, announcing that "we will go believing that everything is in the hands of God." Nine of the eleven family heads chose Rongerik as their new home. Navy Seabees helped them to disassemble their church and community house and prepare to relocate to their new home. On March 7, 1946, the residents gathered their belongings and building supplies. They were transported eastward on Navy landing craft 1108 and LST 861 to the uninhabited Rongerik Atoll, which was one-sixth the size of Bikini Atoll. No one lived on Rongerik because it had an inadequate water and food supply, and also due to traditional beliefs that the island was haunted by the Demon Girls of Ujae. The Navy left them with a few weeks of food and water which soon proved inadequate.
Military services
The United States assembled a support fleet of 242 ships that provided quarters, experimental stations, and workshops for more than 42,000 personnel. The islands were primarily used as recreation and instrumentation sites. Seabees built bunkers, floating dry docks, steel towers for cameras and recording instruments, and other facilities on the island to support the servicemen. These included the "Up and Atom Officer's Club" and the "Cross Spikes Club", a bar and hang-out created by servicemen on Bikini Island between June and September 1946. The "club" was little more than a small open-air building which served alcohol to servicemen and provided outdoor entertainment, including a ping pong table. The "Cross Spikes Club" was the only entertainment that the enlisted servicemen had access to during their June to September stay at Bikini.
Ship graveyard
The Navy designated Bikini Atoll lagoon as a ship graveyard, then brought in 95 ships, including carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, attack transports, and landing ships. The proxy fleet would have comprised the sixth largest naval fleet in the world if the ships had been active. All carried varying amounts of fuel, and some carried live ordnance.
Weapons tests
Operation Crossroads
Crossroads consisted of two detonations, each with a yield of 23 kt of TNT (96 TJ). Able was detonated over Bikini on July 1, 1946 and exploded at an altitude of , but was dropped by aircraft about off target. It sank only five of the ships in the lagoon. Baker was detonated underwater at a depth of on July 25, sinking eight ships. The second underwater blast created a large condensation cloud and contaminated the ships with more radioactive water than was expected. Many of the surviving ships were too contaminated to be used again for testing and were sunk. The air-borne nuclear detonation raised the surface seawater temperature by , created blast waves with speeds of up to , and shock and surface waves up to high. Blast columns reached the floor of the lagoon, which is approximately deep.
Charlie was planned for 1947 but was canceled primarily because of the Navy's inability to decontaminate the target ships after the Baker test. Charlie was rescheduled as Operation Wigwam, a deep water shot conducted in 1955 off the California coast.
Castle Bravo test
The next series of tests over Bikini Atoll was codenamed Operation Castle. The first test of that series was Castle Bravo, a new design utilizing a dry fuel thermonuclear bomb. It was detonated at dawn on March 1, 1954.
The explosion yielded 15 Mt of TNT, far exceeding the expected yield of 4 to 8 Mt of TNT (6 predicted), and was about 1,000 times more powerful than each of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The device was the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated by the United States and just under one-third the energy of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear device ever tested. The scientists and military authorities were shocked by the size of the explosion, and it destroyed many of the instruments put in place to evaluate the effectiveness of the test.
Castle Bravo contamination
The unexpectedly large yield led to the most significant radiological contamination caused by the United States. A few minutes after the detonation, blast debris began to fall on Eneu/Enyu Island on Bikini Atoll where the crew who fired the device were located. Their Geiger counters detected the unexpected fallout, and they were forced to take shelter indoors for a number of hours before it was safe for an airlift rescue operation.
The fallout continued to spread across the inhabited islands of the Rongelap, Rongerik, and Utrik Atolls. The inhabitants of Rongelap and Rongerik Atolls were evacuated by servicemen two days after the detonation, but the residents of the more distant Utrik Atoll were not evacuated for three days. Many of them soon began to show symptoms of acute radiation syndrome. They returned to the islands three years later but were forced to relocate again when they were found to be unsafe.
The fallout gradually dispersed around the globe, depositing traces of radioactive material in Australia, India, Japan, and parts of the United States and Europe. It had been organized as a secret test, but Castle Bravo quickly became an international incident prompting calls for a ban on atmospheric testing of thermonuclear weapons.
Local populations affected
The Rongelap Atoll was coated with up to of snow-like irradiated calcium debris and ash over the entire island. Virtually all the inhabitants experienced severe radiation sickness, including itchiness, sore skin, vomiting, diarrhea, and fatigue. Their symptoms also included burning eyes and swelling of the neck, arms, and legs. They were forced to abandon the islands three days after the tests, leaving behind all their belongings. The U.S. government relocated them to Kwajalein for medical treatment.
Six days after the Castle Bravo test, the government set up a secret project to study the medical effects of the weapon on the residents of the Marshall Islands. The United States was subsequently accused of using the inhabitants as medical research subjects without obtaining their consent to study the effects of nuclear exposure. Until that time, the Atomic Energy Commission had given little thought to the potential impact of widespread fallout contamination and health and ecological impacts beyond the formally designated boundary of the test site.
Japanese fishermen contaminated
Ninety minutes after the detonation, 23 crew members of the Japanese fishing boat the Daigo Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") were contaminated by the snow-like irradiated debris and ash. They had no idea what the explosion was and no understanding of the debris that rained down like snow, but they all soon became ill with the effects of acute radiation sickness. One fisherman died about six months later while under doctor supervision; his cause of death was ruled a pre-existing liver cirrhosis compounded by a hepatitis C infection. The majority of medical experts believe that the crew members were infected with hepatitis C through blood transfusions during part of their acute radiation syndrome treatment.
Edward Teller was one of the driving minds behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and an architect of the Marshall Island tests. After the mass media painted the fisherman's death as an anti-nuclear call to arms, Teller notoriously commented, "It's unreasonable to make such a big deal over the death of a fisherman."
Later tests
The 17-shot Redwing series followed—11 tests at Enewetak Atoll and six at Bikini. The island residents had been promised that they would be able to return home to Bikini, but the government thwarted that indefinitely by deciding to resume nuclear testing at Bikini in 1954. During 1954, 1956, and 1958, 21 more nuclear bombs were detonated at Bikini, yielding a total of 75 Mt of TNT (310 PJ), equivalent to more than three thousand Baker bombs. The 3.8 Mt of TNT Redwing Cherokee test was the only air burst. Air bursts distribute fallout in a large area, but surface bursts produce intense local fallout. These tests were followed by the 33-shot Hardtack tests, which began in late April 1958. The last of ten tests were detonated on Bikini Atoll on July 22, 1958.
Shipwrecks
Shipwrecks in the lagoon include:
—aircraft carrier
—battleship
—attack transport
—attack transport
—destroyer
—destroyer
—submarine
—submarine
—battleship
—light cruiser
—heavy cruiser—currently capsized on the surface of Kwajalein Atoll lagoon
Nuclear test detonations at Bikini Atoll
The following above-ground nuclear device tests were conducted on or near Bikini Atoll from 1946 to 1958, comprising 15.1% of total test yield worldwide. These dates are given in US Eastern time zone The days of the week are a day earlier than they were at Bikini.
Relocation issues
Strategic Trust Territory
In 1947, the United States petitioned the United Nations Security Council to designate the islands of Micronesia a United Nations Strategic Trust Territory. This was the only strategic trust ever granted by the Security Council. The U.S. Navy controlled the trust from a headquarters in Guam until 1951, when the Department of the Interior took over control, administering the territory from a base in Saipan. The directive stipulated that the U.S. would "promote the economic advancement and self-sufficiency of the inhabitants" and "protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources".
The residents of Bikini Atoll were left alone on Rongerik Atoll from July 1946 through July 1947. Leonard E. Mason was an anthropologist from the University of Hawaii; he visited the islanders on Rongerik Atoll in January 1948 and found that they were starving. A team of U.S. investigators concluded in late 1947 that the islanders must be moved immediately. Press from around the world harshly criticized the U.S. Navy for ignoring them. Columnist Harold Ickes wrote that "the natives are actually and literally starving to death."
The Navy then selected Ujelang Atoll for their temporary home, and some young men from the Bikini Atoll population went ahead to begin constructing living accommodations. But U.S. Trust Authorities decided to use Enewetak Atoll as a second nuclear weapons test site, and they relocated Enewetak's residents to Ujelang Atoll to the homes built for the Bikini Islanders.
In March 1948, 184 malnourished Bikini islanders were temporarily relocated again to Kwajalein Atoll. In June 1948, the Bikini residents chose Kili Island as a long-term home. The () island is one of the smallest in the Marshall Island chain; it was uninhabited and was not ruled by a paramount iroij (king). The Bikini islanders moved there in November 1948.
Return to Bikini Island
President Lyndon B. Johnson promised the 540 Bikini Atoll families living on Kili and other islands in June 1968 that they would be able to return to their home, based on scientific advice that the radiation levels were sufficiently reduced. But the Atomic Energy Commission learned that the coconut crabs, an essential food source, retained high levels of radioactivity and could not be eaten. The Bikini Council voted to delay a return to the island as a result.
In 1987, a few Bikini elders returned to the island to re-establish old property lines. Construction crews began building a hotel on Bikini and installed generators, desalinators, and power lines. A packed coral and sand runway still exists on Enyu Island. Three extended families moved back to their home island in 1972 despite the risk, eventually totaling about 100 people. But 10 years later, a team of French scientists found that some wells were too radioactive for use and determined that the pandanus and breadfruit were also dangerous for human consumption. Women were experiencing miscarriages, stillbirths, and genetic abnormalities in their children. The U.S.-administered Strategic Trust Territory decided that the islanders had to be evacuated from the atoll a second time.
Second evacuation
An 11-year-old boy who was born on Bikini in 1971 died from cancer that was linked to radiation exposure that he received on Bikini. The records obtained by the Marshallese Nuclear Claims Tribunal later revealed that Dr. Robert Conard, head of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)'s medical team in the Marshall Islands, understated the risk of returning to the atoll. BNL then contracted Dr. Konrad Kotrady to treat the Marshall Island residents. In 1977, he wrote a 14-page report to BNL that questioned the accuracy of Brookhaven's prior work on the islands. The Bikini Atoll islanders grew to distrust the official reports of the U.S. scientists.
The special International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Bikini Advisory Group determined in 1997 that it was "safe to walk on all of the islands" and that the residual radioactivity was "not hazardous to health at the levels measured". They further stated that "the main radiation risk would be from the food", but they also added that "eating coconuts or breadfruit from Bikini Island occasionally would be no cause for concern". IAEA estimated that living in the atoll and consuming local food would result in an effective dose of about 15 mSv/a.
The leaders of the Bikini community have insisted since the early 1980s that the top of soil should be excavated from the entire island. Scientists reply that removing the soil would rid the island of cesium-137, but it would also severely damage the environment, turning the atoll into a virtual wasteland of windswept sand. The Bikini Council has repeatedly contended that removing the topsoil is the only way to guarantee safe living conditions for future generations.
In 1997, researchers found that the dose received from background radiation on the island was between 2.4 mSv/a—the same as natural background radiation—and 4.5 mSv/a, assuming that residents consumed a diet of imported foods. The local food supply is still irradiated and the group did not recommend resettling the island. A 1998 IAEA report found that Bikini should not be permanently resettled because of dangerous levels of radiation in the locally produced food. A permanent rehabitation would likely require the use of potassium fertilizer.
A 2002 survey found that the coral inside the Bravo Crater has partially recovered. Zoe Richards of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University observed matrices of branching Porites coral up to 8 m high.
Compensation and reparations
The Bikini islanders sued the United States for the first time in 1975, and they demanded a radiological study of the northern islands. The United States set up The Hawaiian Trust Fund for the People of Bikini in 1975, totaling $3 million. Residents were removed from the island in 1978, and the government added $3 million to the fund and created The Resettlement Trust Fund for the People of Bikini, containing $20 million in 1982. The government added another $90 million to that fund to pay to clean up, reconstruct homes and facilities, and resettle the islanders on Bikini and Eneu islands.
In 1983, the U.S. and the Marshall islanders signed the Compact of Free Association which gave the Marshall Islands independence. The Compact became effective in 1986 and was subsequently modified by the Amended Compact that became effective in 2004. It also established the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, which was given the task of adjudicating compensation for victims and families affected by the nuclear testing program. Section 177 of the compact provided for reparations to the Bikini islanders and other northern atolls for damages. It included $75 million to be paid over 15 years. On March 5, 2001, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal ruled against the United States for damages done to the islands and its people.
The payments began in 1987 with $2.4 million paid annually to the entire Bikini population, while the remaining $2.6 million is paid into The Bikini Claims Trust Fund. This trust is intended to exist in perpetuity and to provide the islanders a 5% payment from the trust annually. The United States provided $150 million in compensation for damage caused by the nuclear testing program and their displacement from their home island.
By 2001, 70 of the 167 relocated residents were still alive, and the entire population had grown to 2,800. Most of the islanders and their descendants live on Kili, in Majuro, or in the United States. Only a few living people were born on the Bikini Atoll. Most of the younger descendants have never lived there or even visited. The population is growing at a four percent growth rate, so increasing numbers are taking advantage of terms in the Marshall Islands' Compact of Free Association that allow them to obtain jobs in the United States.
Recovery of marine ecosystem
Stanford University professor Steve Palumbi led a study in 2017 that reported on ocean life that seems highly resilient to the effects of radiation poisoning. The team described substantial diversity in the marine ecosystem, with animals appearing healthy to the naked eye. According to Palumbi, the atoll's "lagoon is full of schools of fish all swirling around the living coral. In a strange way they are protected by the history of this place, the fish populations are better than in some other places because they have been left alone, the sharks are more abundant and the coral are big. It is a remarkable environment, quite odd." Both corals and long-lived animals such as coconut crabs should be vulnerable to radiation-induced cancers, and understanding how they have thrived might lead to discoveries about preserving DNA. Pambuli notes that the Bikini Atoll is "an ironic setting for research that might help people live longer". PBS documented field work undertaken by Palumbi and his graduate student Elora López on Bikini Atoll for the second episode ("Violent") of their series Big Pacific. The episode explored "species, natural phenomena and behaviors of the Pacific Ocean" and the way that the team is using DNA sequencing to study the rate and pattern of any mutations. López suggested possible explanations for the health of the marine life to The Stanford Daily, such as a mechanism for DNA repair that is superior to that possessed by humans, or a method of maintaining a genome in the face of nuclear radiation.
The area has effectively become an unplanned marine-life sanctuary; this has also occurred in Europe in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, where scientists are studying the effects of radiation on animal life. Most fish have relatively short lifespans, and Palumbi suggested that "it is possible the worst-affected fish died off many decades ago… and the fish living in Bikini Atoll today are only subject to low levels of radiation exposure as they frequently swim in and out of the atoll." Nurse sharks have two dorsal fins, but Palumbi's team observed individuals with only a single fin, and they theorized that they might be mutations. Pambuli and his team have focussed on the hubcap-sized crabs, as their coconut diet is contaminated with radioactive caesium-137 from ground water, and on the corals, because both have longer life spans that allow the scientists "to delve into what effect the radiation exposure has had on the animals' DNA after building up in their systems for many years."
Bikini Atoll remains uninhabitable for humans due to what United Nations reporter Călin Georgescu described as "near-irreversible environmental contamination". Gamma radiation levels in 2016 averaged 184 mrem yr−1 (1.84 mSv/a), well above the maximum allowed for human habitation, thereby rendering the water, seafood, and plants unsafe for human consumption. Timothy Jorgensen reports on the increased cancer risk among the residents of the nearby islands, especially for leukemia and thyroid cancers.
Health impacts
The inhabitants of the Marshall Islands, particularly those closest to Bikini Atoll, were exposed to high levels of radiation. The highest levels of radiation exposure were found in the areas of local fallout. The fallout produced from nuclear tests can affect the human populations internally or externally. External irradiation is from penetrating gamma rays that come from particles on the ground. The levels of external radiation exposure can be reduced if one were indoors because buildings act as a shield. Inhalation of radioactive fallout and epidermal absorption are the primary means of irradiation. However most exposure is from consumption of food that has been contaminated through fallout. The people of the islands would consume meat or products from animals that had been irradiated, therefore irradiating the consumer. Food shipped into the islands was also affected by contamination through contaminated cooking utensils. Many dairy products, such as milk and yogurt, were contaminated as a result of radionuclides landing on pastures. Iodine-131, a highly radioactive isotope, was ingested or inhaled by many through various forms. The iodine-131 consumed would become concentrated in one's thyroid.
On the Marshall Islands, the detonation of Castle Bravo was the cause of most of the radiation exposure to the surrounding populations. The fallout levels attributed to the Castle Bravo test are the highest in history. The exposure to fallout has been linked to increases in the likelihood of several types of cancer such as leukemia and thyroid cancer. The relationship between I-131 levels and thyroid cancer is continuing to be researched. There are also correlations between fallout exposure levels and diseases such as thyroid disease like hypothyroidism. Populations of the Marshall Islands that received significant exposure to radionuclides have a much greater risk of developing cancer. The Castle Bravo test detonation produced an explosion of approximately 15 Mt of TNT and populations neighboring the test site were exposed to high levels of radiation resulting in mild radiation sickness of many (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea). Several weeks later, many people began suffering from alopecia (hair loss) and skin lesions as well. The female population of the Marshall Islands have a sixty times greater cervical cancer mortality than a comparable mainland United States population. The Islands populations also have a five times greater likelihood of breast or gastrointestinal mortality, and lung cancer mortality is three times higher than the mainland population. The male population on the Marshall Islands' lung cancer mortality is four times greater than the overall United States rates, and the oral cancer rates are ten times greater.
There is a presumed association between radiation levels and female reproductive system functioning.
References
External links
BikiniAtoll.com: "What About Radiation on Bikini Atoll ?"
U.S. Department of Energy: Marshall Islands Program website — Chronology of nuclear testing, relocation of islanders and results of radiation tests.
WLU.edu: Annotated bibliography for Bikini Atoll from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
JapanFocus.org: Islanders Want The Truth About Bikini Nuclear Test
CSU.edu: Bikini Atoll website
BBC: "On this Day in History" (March 1st)
YouTube—Atomic Age: "Bikini Island Nuclear Explosion" (video)
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American nuclear test sites
Bikini Atoll
Nuclear test sites
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands
1940s in the Marshall Islands
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A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves occur worldwide in the tropics and subtropics and even some temperate coastal areas, mainly between latitudes 30° N and 30° S, with the greatest mangrove area within 5° of the equator.
Mangrove plant families first appeared during the Late Cretaceous to Paleocene epochs, and became widely distributed in part due to the movement of tectonic plates. The oldest known fossils of mangrove palm date to 75 million years ago.
Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees, also called halophytes, and are adapted to live in harsh coastal conditions. They contain a complex salt filtration system and
a complex root system to cope with saltwater immersion and wave action. They are adapted to the low-oxygen conditions of waterlogged mud, but are most likely to thrive in the upper half of the intertidal zone.
The mangrove biome, often called the mangrove forest or mangal, is a distinct saline woodland or shrubland habitat characterized by depositional coastal environments, where fine sediments (often with high organic content) collect in areas protected from high-energy wave action. The saline conditions tolerated by various mangrove species range from brackish water, through pure seawater (3 to 4% salinity), to water concentrated by evaporation to over twice the salinity of ocean seawater (up to 9% salinity).
Beginning in 2010
remote sensing technologies and global data have been used to assess areas, conditions and deforestation rates of mangroves around the world. In 2018, the Global Mangrove Watch Initiative released a new global baseline which estimates the total mangrove forest area of the world as of 2010 at , spanning 118 countries and territories. Mangrove loss continues due to human activity, with a global annual deforestation rate estimated at 0.16%, and per-country rates as high as 0.70%. Degradation in quality of remaining mangroves is also an important concern.
There is interest in mangrove restoration for several reasons. Mangroves support sustainable coastal and marine ecosystems. They protect nearby areas from tsunamis and extreme weather events. Mangrove forests are also effective at carbon sequestration and storage and mitigate climate change. As the effects of climate change become more severe, mangrove ecosystems are expected to help local ecosystems adapt and be more resilient to changes like extreme weather and sea level rise. The success of mangrove restoration may depend heavily on engagement with local stakeholders, and on careful assessment to ensure that growing conditions will be suitable for the species chosen.
Etymology
Etymology of the English term mangrove can only be speculative and is disputed.
The term may have come to English from the Portuguese or the Spanish
. Farther back, it may be traced to South America and Cariban and Arawakan languages such as Taíno. Other possibilities include the Malay language and the Guarani language.
The English usage may reflect a corruption via folk etymology of the words mangrow and grove.
The word "mangrove" is used in at least three senses:
most broadly to refer to the habitat and entire plant assemblage or mangal, for which the terms mangrove forest biome and mangrove swamp are also used;
to refer to all trees and large shrubs in a mangrove swamp; and
narrowly to refer only to mangrove trees of the genus Rhizophora of the family Rhizophoraceae.
Biology
Of the recognized 110 mangrove species, only about 54 species in 20 genera from 16 families constitute the "true mangroves", species that occur almost exclusively in mangrove habitats. Demonstrating convergent evolution, many of these species found similar solutions to the tropical conditions of variable salinity, tidal range (inundation), anaerobic soils, and intense sunlight. Plant biodiversity is generally low in a given mangrove. The greatest biodiversity of mangroves occurs in Southeast Asia, particularly in the Indonesian archipelago.
Adaptations to low oxygen
The red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) survives in the most inundated areas, props itself above the water level with stilt or prop roots and then absorbs air through lenticels in its bark.
The black mangrove (Avicennia germinans) lives on higher ground and develops many specialized root-like structures called pneumatophores, which stick up out of the soil like straws for breathing.
These "breathing tubes" typically reach heights of up to , and in some species, over . The four types of pneumatophores are stilt or prop type, snorkel or peg type, knee type, and ribbon or plank type. Knee and ribbon types may be combined with buttress roots at the base of the tree. The roots also contain wide aerenchyma to facilitate transport within the plants.
Nutrient uptake
Because the soil is perpetually waterlogged, little free oxygen is available. Anaerobic bacteria liberate nitrogen gas, soluble ferrum (iron), inorganic phosphates, sulfides, and methane, which make the soil much less nutritious. Pneumatophores (aerial roots) allow mangroves to absorb gases directly from the atmosphere, and other nutrients such as iron, from the inhospitable soil. Mangroves store gases directly inside the roots, processing them even when the roots are submerged during high tide.
Limiting salt intake
Red mangroves exclude salt by having significantly impermeable roots which are highly suberised (impregnated with suberin), acting as an ultra-filtration mechanism to exclude sodium salts from the rest of the plant. Analysis of water inside mangroves has shown 90% to 97% of salt has been excluded at the roots. In a frequently cited concept that has become known as the "sacrificial leaf", salt which does accumulate in the shoot (sprout) then concentrates in old leaves, which the plant then sheds. However, recent research suggests the older, yellowing leaves have no more measurable salt content than the other, greener leaves. Red mangroves can also store salt in cell vacuoles. White and grey mangroves can secrete salts directly; they have two salt glands at each leaf base (correlating with their name—they are covered in white salt crystals).
Limiting water loss
Because of the limited fresh water available in salty intertidal soils, mangroves limit the amount of water they lose through their leaves. They can restrict the opening of their stomata (pores on the leaf surfaces, which exchange carbon dioxide gas and water vapor during photosynthesis). They also vary the orientation of their leaves to avoid the harsh midday sun and so reduce evaporation from the leaves. A captive red mangrove grows only if its leaves are misted with fresh water several times a week, simulating frequent tropical rainstorms.<ref>{{cite web |author=Calfo, A. |year=2006 |url=Mangroves for the Marine Aquarium by Anthony Calfo - Reefkeeping.com |title=Mangroves for the Marine Aquarium |publisher=Reefkeeping |access-date=2012-02-08}}</ref>
Filtration of seawater
A 2016 study by Kim et al. investigated the biophysical characteristics of sea water filtration in the roots of the mangrove Rhizophora stylosa from a plant hydrodynamic point of view. R. stylosa can grow even in saline water and the salt level in its roots is regulated within a certain threshold value through filtration. The root possesses a hierarchical, triple layered pore structure in the epidermis and most Na+ ions are filtered at the first sublayer of the outermost layer. The high blockage of Na+ ions is attributed to the high surface zeta potential of the first layer. The second layer, which is composed of macroporous structures, also facilitates Na+ ion filtration. The study provides insights into the mechanism underlying water filtration through halophyte roots and could serve as a basis for the development of a bio-inspired method of desalination.
Uptake of Na+ ions is desirable for halophytes to build up osmotic potential, absorb water and sustain turgor pressure. However, excess Na+ions may work on toxic element. Therefore, halophytes try to adjust salinity delicately between growth and survival strategies. In this point of view, a novel sustainable desalination method can be derived from halophytes, which are in contact with saline water through their roots. Halophytes exclude salt through their roots, secrete the accumulated salt through their aerial parts and sequester salt in senescent leaves and/or the bark. Mangroves are facultative halophytes and Bruguiera is known for its special ultrafiltration system that can filter approximately 90% of Na+ions from the surrounding seawater through the roots. The species also exhibits a high rate of salt rejection. The water-filtering process in mangrove roots has received considerable attention for several decades. Morphological structures of plants and their functions have been evolved through a long history to survive against harsh environmental conditions.
Increasing survival of offspring
In this harsh environment, mangroves have evolved a special mechanism to help their offspring survive. Mangrove seeds are buoyant and are therefore suited to water dispersal. Unlike most plants, whose seeds germinate in soil, many mangroves (e.g. red mangrove) are viviparous, meaning their seeds germinate while still attached to the parent tree. Once germinated, the seedling grows either within the fruit (e.g. Aegialitis, Avicennia and Aegiceras), or out through the fruit (e.g. Rhizophora, Ceriops, Bruguiera and Nypa) to form a propagule (a ready-to-go seedling) which can produce its own food via photosynthesis.
The mature propagule then drops into the water, which can transport it great distances. Propagules can survive desiccation and remain dormant for over a year before arriving in a suitable environment. Once a propagule is ready to root, its density changes so that the elongated shape now floats vertically rather than horizontally. In this position, it is more likely to lodge in the mud and root. If it does not root, it can alter its density and drift again in search of more favorable conditions.
Taxonomy and evolution
The following listings, based on Tomlinson, 2016, give the mangrove species in each listed plant genus and family. Mangrove environments in the Eastern Hemisphere harbor six times as many species of trees and shrubs as do mangroves in the New World. Genetic divergence of mangrove lineages from terrestrial relatives, in combination with fossil evidence, suggests mangrove diversity is limited by evolutionary transition into the stressful marine environment, and the number of mangrove lineages has increased steadily over the Tertiary with little global extinction.
True mangroves
Minor components
Species distribution
Mangroves are a type of tropical vegetation with some outliers established in subtropical latitudes, notably in South Florida and southern Japan, as well as South Africa, New Zealand and Victoria (Australia). These outliers result either from unbroken coastlines and island chains or from reliable supplies of propagules floating on warm ocean currents from rich mangrove regions.
"At the limits of distribution, the formation is represented by scrubby, usually monotypic Avicennia-dominated vegetation, as at Westonport Bay and Corner Inlet, Victoria, Australia. The latter locality is the highest latitude (38° 45'S) at which mangroves occur naturally. The mangroves in New Zealand, which extend as far south as 37°, are of the same type; they start as low forest in the northern part of the North Island but become low scrub toward their southern limit. In both instances, the species is referred to as Avicennia marina var. australis, although genetic comparison is clearly needed. In Western Australia, A. marina extends as far south as Sunbury (33° 19'S). In the northern hemisphere, scrubby Avicennia gerrninans in Florida occurs as far north as St. Augustine on the east coast and Cedar Point on the west. There are records of A. germinans and Rhizophora mangle for Bermuda, presumably supplied by the Gulf Stream. In southern Japan, Kandelia obovata occurs to about 31 °N (Tagawa in Hosakawa et al., 1977, but initially referred to as K. candel)."
Mangrove forests
Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps or mangals, are found in tropical and subtropical tidal areas. Areas where mangroves occur include estuaries and marine shorelines.
The intertidal existence to which these trees are adapted represents the major limitation to the number of species able to thrive in their habitat. High tide brings in salt water, and when the tide recedes, solar evaporation of the seawater in the soil leads to further increases in salinity. The return of tide can flush out these soils, bringing them back to salinity levels comparable to that of seawater.
At low tide, organisms are also exposed to increases in temperature and reduced moisture before being then cooled and flooded by the tide. Thus, for a plant to survive in this environment, it must tolerate broad ranges of salinity, temperature, and moisture, as well as several other key environmental factors—thus only a select few species make up the mangrove tree community.
About 110 species are considered mangroves, in the sense of being trees that grow in such a saline swamp, though only a few are from the mangrove plant genus, Rhizophora. However, a given mangrove swamp typically features only a small number of tree species. It is not uncommon for a mangrove forest in the Caribbean to feature only three or four tree species. For comparison, the tropical rainforest biome contains thousands of tree species, but this is not to say mangrove forests lack diversity. Though the trees themselves are few in species, the ecosystem that these trees create provides a home (habitat) for a great variety of other species, including as many as 174 species of marine megafauna.
Mangrove plants require a number of physiological adaptations to overcome the problems of low environmental oxygen levels, high salinity, and frequent tidal flooding. Each species has its own solutions to these problems; this may be the primary reason why, on some shorelines, mangrove tree species show distinct zonation. Small environmental variations within a mangal may lead to greatly differing methods for coping with the environment. Therefore, the mix of species is partly determined by the tolerances of individual species to physical conditions, such as tidal flooding and salinity, but may also be influenced by other factors, such as crabs preying on plant seedlings.
Once established, mangrove roots provide an oyster habitat and slow water flow, thereby enhancing sediment deposition in areas where it is already occurring. The fine, anoxic sediments under mangroves act as sinks for a variety of heavy (trace) metals which colloidal particles in the sediments have concentrated from the water. Mangrove removal disturbs these underlying sediments, often creating problems of trace metal contamination of seawater and organisms of the area.
Mangrove swamps protect coastal areas from erosion, storm surge (especially during tropical cyclones), and tsunamis. They limit high-energy wave erosion mainly during events such as storm surges and tsunamis.
The mangroves' massive root systems are efficient at dissipating wave energy. Likewise, they slow down tidal water enough so that its sediment is deposited as the tide comes in, leaving all except fine particles when the tide ebbs. In this way, mangroves build their environments. Because of the uniqueness of mangrove ecosystems and the protection against erosion they provide, they are often the object of conservation programs, including national biodiversity action plans.
The unique ecosystem found in the intricate mesh of mangrove roots offers a quiet marine habitat for young organisms. In areas where roots are permanently submerged, the organisms they host include algae, barnacles, oysters, sponges, and bryozoans, which all require a hard surface for anchoring while they filter-feed. Shrimps and mud lobsters use the muddy bottoms as their home. Mangrove crabs eat the mangrove leaves, adding nutrients to the mangal mud for other bottom feeders. In at least some cases, the export of carbon fixed in mangroves is important in coastal food webs.
Mangrove plantations in Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, and India host several commercially important species of fish and crustaceans.
Mangrove forests can decay into peat deposits because of fungal and bacterial processes as well as by the action of termites. It becomes peat in good geochemical, sedimentary, and tectonic conditions. The nature of these deposits depends on the environment and the types of mangroves involved. In Puerto Rico, the red, white, and black mangroves occupy different ecological niches and have slightly different chemical compositions, so the carbon content varies between the species, as well between the different tissues of the plant (e.g., leaf matter versus roots).
In Puerto Rico, there is a clear succession of these three trees from the lower elevations, which are dominated by red mangroves, to farther inland with a higher concentration of white mangroves. Mangrove forests are an important part of the cycling and storage of carbon in tropical coastal ecosystems. Knowing this, scientists seek to reconstruct the environment and investigate changes to the coastal ecosystem over thousands of years using sediment cores. However, an additional complication is the imported marine organic matter that also gets deposited in the sediment due to the tidal flushing of mangrove forests.
Termites play an important role in the formation of peat from mangrove materials. They process fallen leaf litter, root systems and wood from mangroves into peat to build their nests. Termites stabilise the chemistry of this peat and represent approximately 2% of above ground carbon storage in mangroves. As the nests are buried over time this carbon is stored in the sediment and the carbon cycle continues.
Mangroves are an important source of blue carbon. Globally, mangroves stored of carbon in 2012. Two percent of global mangrove carbon was lost between 2000 and 2012, equivalent to a maximum potential of of CO2 emissions.
Globally, mangroves have been shown to provide measurable economic protections to coastal communities affected by tropical storms.
Mangrove microbiomes
Plant microbiomes play crucial roles in their health and productivity of mangroves. Many researchers have successfully applied knowledge acquired about plant microbiomes to produce specific inocula for crop protection. Such inocula can stimulate plant growth by releasing phytohormones and enhancing uptake of some mineral nutrients (particularly phosphorus and nitrogen). However, most of the plant microbiome studies have focused on the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and economically important crop plants, such as rice , barley, wheat, maize and soybean. There is less information on microbiomes of tree species. Plant microbiomes are determined by plant-related factors (e.g., genotype, organ, species, and health status) and environmental factors (e.g., land use, climate, and nutrient availability). Two of the plant-related factors, plant species and genotypes, have been shown to play significant roles in shaping rhizosphere and plant microbiomes, as tree genotypes and species are associated with specific microbial communities. Different plant organs also have specific microbial communities depending on plant-associated factors (plant genotype, available nutrients, and organ-specific physicochemical conditions) and/or environmental conditions (associated with aboveground and underground surfaces and disturbances).
Root microbiome
Mangrove roots harbour a repertoire of microbial taxa that contribute to important ecological functions in mangrove ecosystems. Similar to typical terrestrial plants, mangroves depend upon mutually beneficial interactions with microbial communities. In particular, microbes residing in developed roots could help mangroves transform nutrients into usable forms prior to plant assimilation. These microbes also provide mangroves phytohormones for suppressing phytopathogens or helping mangroves withstand heat and salinity. In turn, root-associated microbes receive carbon metabolites from the plant via root exudates, thus close associations between the plant and microbes are established for their mutual benefits. Material was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Highly diverse microbial communities (mainly bacteria and fungi) have been found to inhabit and function in mangrove roots. For example, diazotrophic bacteria in the vicinity of mangrove roots could perform biological nitrogen fixation, which provides 40–60% of the total nitrogen required by mangroves; the soil attached to mangrove roots lacks oxygen but is rich in organic matter, providing an optimal microenvironment for sulfate-reducing bacteria and methanogens, ligninolytic, cellulolytic, and amylolytic fungi are prevalent in the mangrove root environment; rhizosphere fungi could help mangroves survive in waterlogged and nutrient-restricted environments. These studies have provided increasing evidences to support the importance of root-associated bacteria and fungi for mangrove growth and health.
Recent studies have investigated the detailed structure of root-associated microbial communities at a continuous fine-scale in other plants, where a microhabitat was divided into four root compartments: endosphere, episphere, rhizosphere, and nonrhizosphere. Moreover, the microbial communities in each compartment have been reported to have unique characteristics. The rhizosphere could emit root exudates that selectively enriched specific microbial populations; however, these exudates were found to exert only marginal impacts on microbes in the nonrhizosphere soil. Furthermore, it was noted that the root episphere, rather than the rhizosphere, was primarily responsible for controlling the entry of specific microbial populations into the root, resulting in the selective enrichment of Proteobacteria in the endosphere. These findings provide new insights into the niche differentiation of root-associated microbial communities, Nevertheless, amplicon-based community profiling may not provide the functional characteristics of root-associated microbial communities in plant growth and biogeochemical cycling. Unraveling functional patterns across the four root compartments holds a great potential for understanding functional mechanisms responsible for mediating root–microbe interactions in support of enhancing mangrove ecosystem functioning.
Mangrove viromes
Mangroves forests are one of the most carbon-rich biomes, accounting for 11% of the total input of terrestrial carbon into oceans. Although viruses are thought to significantly influence local and global biogeochemical cycles, though as of 2019 little information was available about the community structure, genetic diversity and ecological roles of viruses in mangrove ecosystems.
Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on earth, present in virtually all ecosystems. By lysing their hosts, that is, by rupturing their cell membranes, viruses control host abundance and affect the structure of host communities. Viruses also influence their host diversity and evolution through horizontal gene transfer, selection for resistance and manipulation of bacterial metabolisms. Importantly, marine viruses affect local and global biogeochemical cycles through the release of substantial amounts of organic carbon and nutrients from hosts and assist microbes in driving biogeochemical cycles with auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs).
It is presumed AMGs augment viral-infected host metabolism and facilitate the production of new viruses. AMGs have been extensively explored in marine cyanophages and include genes involved in photosynthesis, carbon turnover, phosphate uptake and stress response. Cultivation-independent metagenomic analysis of viral communities has identified additional AMGs that are involved in motility, central carbon metabolism, photosystem I, energy metabolism, iron–sulphur clusters, anti-oxidation and sulphur and nitrogen cycling. Interestingly, a recent analysis of Pacific Ocean Virome data identified niche-specialised AMGs that contribute to depth-stratified host adaptations. Given that microbes drive global biogeochemical cycles, and a large fraction of microbes is infected by viruses at any given time, viral-encoded AMGs must play important roles in global biogeochemistry and microbial metabolic evolution.
Mangrove forests are the only woody halophytes that live in salt water along the world’s subtropical and tropical coastlines. Mangroves are one of the most productive and ecologically important ecosystems on earth. The rates of primary production of mangroves equal those of tropical humid evergreen forests and coral reefs. As a globally relevant component of the carbon cycle, mangroves sequester approximately 24 million metric tons of carbon each year. Most mangrove carbon is stored in soil and sizable belowground pools of dead roots, aiding in the conservation and recycling of nutrients beneath forests. Although mangroves cover only 0.5% of the earth’s coastal area, they account for 10–15% of the coastal sediment carbon storage and 10–11% of the total input of terrestrial carbon into oceans. The disproportionate contribution of mangroves to carbon sequestration is now perceived as an important means to counterbalance greenhouse gas emissions.
Despite the ecological importance of mangrove ecosystem, our knowledge on mangrove biodiversity is notably limited. Previous reports mainly investigated the biodiversity of mangrove fauna, flora and bacterial communities. Particularly, little information is available about viral communities and their roles in mangrove soil ecosystems. In view of the importance of viruses in structuring and regulating host communities and mediating element biogeochemical cycles, exploring viral communities in mangrove ecosystems is essential. Additionally, the intermittent flooding of sea water and resulting sharp transition of mangrove environments may result in substantially different genetic and functional diversity of bacterial and viral communities in mangrove soils compared with those of other systems.
Genome sequencing
Rhizophoreae as revealed by whole-genome sequencing
See also
Coastal management
Mangrove swamp
Mangrove restoration
Salt marsh
Longshore drift
Coastal erosion
Coastal geography
Ecological values of mangrove
Blue carbon
Keystone species
References
Further reading
Saenger, Peter (2002). Mangrove Ecology, Silviculture, and Conservation. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. .
Thanikaimoni, Ganapathi (1986). Mangrove Palynology UNDP/UNESCO and the French Institute of Pondicherry, ISSN 0073-8336 (E).
Tomlinson, Philip B. (1986). The Botany of Mangroves. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, .
Teas, H. J. (1983). Biology and Ecology of Mangroves. W. Junk Publishers, The Hague. .
Agrawala, Shardul; Hagestad; Marca; Koshy, Kayathu; Ota, Tomoko; Prasad, Biman; Risbey, James; Smith, Joel; Van Aalst, Maarten. 2003. Development and Climate Change in Fiji: Focus on Coastal Mangroves. Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, Cedex 16, France.
Glenn, C. R. 2006. "Earth's Endangered Creatures"
Twilley, R. R., V.H. Rivera-Monroy, E. Medina, A. Nyman, J. Foret, T. Mallach, and L. Botero. 2000. Patterns of forest development in mangroves along the San Juan River estuary, Venezuela. Forest Ecology and Management
Spalding, Mark; Kainuma, Mami and Collins, Lorna (2010) World Atlas of Mangroves'' Earthscan, London, ; 60 maps showing worldwide mangrove distribution
External links
Top 10 Mangrove Forest In The World - Travel Mate
*
In May 2011, the VOA Special English service of the Voice of America broadcast a 15-minute program on mangrove forests. A transcript and MP3 of the program, intended for English learners, can be found at Mangrove Forests Could Be a Big Player in Carbon Trading
Queensland’s coastal kidneys: mangroves. Stacey Larner, John Oxley Library Blog. State Library of Queensland.
Aquatic biomes
Aquatic ecology
Blue carbon
Terrestrial biomes
Plant common names
Oceanographical terminology
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The following is a list of unproduced Tim Burton projects, in roughly chronological order. During a career that has spanned over 30 years, Tim Burton has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction.
1980s
After Hours
Burton was originally attached to direct the 1985 film After Hours, but Martin Scorsese read the script at a time when he was unable to get financial backing to complete The Last Temptation of Christ, which was finally completed in 1988; Burton gladly stepped aside when Scorsese expressed interest in directing After Hours.
Big Top Pee-wee
After the 1985 film, Burton was offered the opportunity to direct Big Top Pee-wee, but had no interest and was already working on his own pet project, Beetlejuice.
Hot to Trot
After the success of Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), and before his hiring of Beetlejuice (1988), Warner Bros. sent Burton various scripts. He was disheartened by their lack of imagination and originality, one of them being Hot to Trot (1988).
1990s
Conversations with Vincent
Burton held a fascination with Vincent Price films since his childhood. He first worked with the actor on the 1982 television film Hansel and Gretel, and a second collaboration on the 1982 short film Vincent. During the production of Edward Scissorhands (1990), in which Price portrayed the inventor, Burton conceived the idea of making an independent documentary film on the actor, using the working title Conversations with Vincent. With self-financing from his own production company, Burton shot the film in black-and-white over a three-day period at the Vincent Price Gallery in East Los Angeles College in April 1991. In addition to Price, Roger Corman and Samuel Z. Arkoff were interviewed. Conversations with Vincent was stalled when Burton went to work on Batman Returns (1992), and after Price's death in October 1993. In December 1994, it was announced that Burton was returning to the hour-long documentary. Lucy Chase Williams, author of The Complete Films of Vincent Price, was working as a consultant. The film likely would have been released in the direct-to-video market, but the project was ultimately abandoned and remains unfinished.
Beetlejuice sequel attempts
Warren Skaaren wrote a sequel script called Beetlejuice In Love, but was unable to keep polishing his story past the first draft due to his sudden death. Later in 1990, Burton hired writer Jonathan Gems for write a sequel to Beetlejuice, entitled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. In early 1991, Burton was still interested in directing the sequel, and hired Daniel Waters to write yet another script, but the two decided to focus on Batman Returns. Waters story outline involved Beetlejuice appearing in the White House and harassing the Clinton family. By August 1993, producer David Geffen hired Pamela Norris (Troop Beverly Hills, Saturday Night Live) to rewrite the script. In 1996, Warner Bros. decided to hire Kevin Smith to write another draft of the Hawaiian script, but he turned down the offer to write the script of the unmade Superman Lives. In March 1997, Gems released a statement saying "The Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian script is still owned by The Geffen Film Company and it will likely never get made. You really couldn't do it now anyway. Winona is too old for the role, and the only way they could make it would be to totally recast it.
In September 2011, Warner Bros. hired Seth Grahame-Smith, who collaborated with Burton on Dark Shadows and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, to write and produce a sequel to Beetlejuice. Grahame-Smith signed on with the intention of doing "a story that is worthy of us actually doing this for real, something that is not just about cashing in, is not just about forcing a remake or a reboot down someone's throat." He was also adamant that Michael Keaton would return and that Warner Bros. would not recast the role. Burton and Keaton have not officially signed on but will return if the script is good enough. Grahame-Smith met with Keaton in February 2012, "We talked for a couple of hours and talked about big picture stuff. It's a priority for Warner Bros. It's a priority for Tim. [Michael's] been wanting to do it for 20 years and he'll talk to anybody about it who will listen." The story will be set in a real time frame from 1988; "This will be a true 26 or 27 years later sequel. What's great is that for Beetlejuice , time means nothing in the afterlife, but the world outside is a different story.
In November 2013, Winona Ryder hinted at a possible return for the sequel as well by saying, "I'm kind of sworn to secrecy but it sounds like it might be happening. It's 27 years later. And I have to say, I love Lydia Deetz so much. She was such a huge part of me. I would be really interested in what she is doing 27 years later." Ryder confirmed that she would only consider making a sequel if Burton and Keaton were involved. In December 2014, Burton stated, "It's a character that I love and I miss actually working with Michael. There's only one Betelgeuse. We're working on a script and I think it's probably closer than ever and I'd love to work with him again." In January 2015, writer Grahame-Smith told Entertainment Weekly that the script was finished and that he and Burton intended to start filming Beetlejuice 2 by the end of the year, and that both Keaton and Ryder would return in their respective roles. In August 2015, on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Ryder confirmed she would be reprising her role in the sequel. In May 2016, Burton stated, "It's something that I really would like to do in the right circumstances, but it's one of those films where it has to be right. It's not a kind of a movie that cries out [for a sequel], it's not the Beetlejuice trilogy. So it's something that if the elements are right—because I do love the character and Michael's amazing as that character, so yeah we'll see. But there's nothing concrete yet." In October 2017, Deadline reported that Mike Vukadinovich was hired to write a script in time for the film's 30th anniversary. In April 2019, Warner Bros. stated the sequel had been shelved.
Mai, the Psychic Girl
Beginning in the late 1980s, new wave rock band Sparks attempted to make the Japanese manga Mai, the Psychic Girl into a musical, with interest from Burton and Carolco Pictures, who purchased the film rights in August 1991. Carolco hoped Burton would start production in 1992, but he chose to work on The Nightmare Before Christmas and Ed Wood for Touchstone Pictures. The option on the film rights eventually expired, and Burton dropped out. Francis Ford Coppola later developed the property in the late 1990s. In June 2000, Sony Pictures Entertainment started on a different project with Kirk Wong attached to direct. By February 2001, a script had been written by Lisa Addario and Joey Syracuse for Sony's Columbia Pictures. The release of The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, a radio musical by Sparks, in August 2009, was informed by the six years the band spent trying to get their Mai, the Psychic Girl produced. The album generated new interest, and gained a "second wind", vocalist Russell Mael explained. "The music is all ready and we are hoping that this still might see the light of day." On May 18, 2010, Burton expressed renewed interest in adapting the property.
Stay Tuned
Morgan Creek Productions originally wanted Burton to direct Stay Tuned because of his work on Beetlejuice and his art style, but Burton left the project to direct Batman Returns, the sequel to his 1989 Batman film, and was replaced by Peter Hyams while having some of the art styles paying tribute to Burton.
Singles television series
After the 1992 film Singles was released, which had Burton in a rare credited acting role, Warner Bros. Television tried to turn the film into a television series, but the project never materialized. The film's director Cameron Crowe claims that Singles inspired the television series Friends.
Jurassic Park
Before Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park was published, Hollywood studios were highly interested in purchasing the film rights. This included Warner Bros. and Burton, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Richard Donner, and 20th Century Fox and Joe Dante. Universal Pictures acquired the rights in May 1990 for Steven Spielberg, resulting in the 1993 film adaptation.
Mary Reilly
Producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber acquired the film rights to Mary Reilly in 1989, and optioned them for Warner Bros. with Roman Polanski as director. When Guber became CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment later that year, he moved Mary Reilly to Sony's sister company, TriStar Pictures, where Burton was approached to direct with Denise Di Novi to produce in 1991. Christopher Hampton was hired to write the screenplay, and Burton signed on as director in January 1993, after he approved over Hampton's rewrite. He intended to start filming in January 1994, after he completed Ed Wood, but Burton dropped out in May 1993 over his anger against Guber for putting Ed Wood in turnaround. Stephen Frears was TriStar's first choice to replace Burton, and Di Novi was fired and replaced with Ned Tanen. The film ended up becoming the critically and commercially unsuccessful Mary Reilly in 1996, starring Julia Roberts and John Malkovich.
Catwoman
Batman Returns would be the last film in the Warner Bros. Batman film series that featured Burton and Michael Keaton as director and leading actor. With Batman Forever, Warner Bros. decided to go in a "lighter" direction to be more mainstream in the process of a family film. Burton had no interest in returning to direct a sequel, but was credited as producer. With Warner Bros. moving on development for Batman Forever in June 1993, a Catwoman spin-off was announced. Michelle Pfeiffer was to reprise her role, with the character not to appear in Forever because of her own spin-off.
Burton became attached as director, while producer Denise Di Novi and writer Daniel Waters also returned. In January 1994, Burton was unsure of his plans to direct Catwoman or an adaptation of "The Fall of the House of Usher". On June 6, 1995, Waters turned in his Catwoman script to Warner Bros., the same day Batman Forever was released. Burton was still being courted to direct. Waters joked, "Turning it in the day Batman Forever opened may not have been my best logistical move, in that it's the celebration of the fun-for-the-whole-family Batman. Catwoman is definitely not a fun-for-the-whole-family script." In an August 1995 interview, Pfeiffer re-iterated her interest in the spin-off, but explained her priorities would be challenged as a mother and commitments to other projects. The film labored in development hell for years, with Pfeiffer replaced by Ashley Judd. The film ended up becoming the critically panned Catwoman (2004), starring Halle Berry.
Batman Continues
During the early development of the cancelled Catwoman spin-off, Burton expressed his interest in directing the third installment of the Batman film series that began with Batman in 1989, which would have been titled Batman Continues. Warner Bros. was not happy with merchandise sales based on the second movie, they decided to change him and Burton put Joel Schumacher as the director of the third installment, leading to the release of Batman Forever, in which Burton was given top-billing producer credit, without being able to contribute ideas; only hiring director and screenplayers.
Cabin Boy
In 1993, Burton was set to direct Cabin Boy, but left to direct Ed Wood. Adam Resnick eventually directed the 1994 film, with Burton in a producer role.
Dennis the Menace
When Warner Bros. Pictures agreed to produce Dennis the Menace in 1993, Production President Terry Semel wanted Burton to direct. The executive producer Ernest Chambers refused and instead hired John Hughes as a writer and producer based on his work with the Home Alone films.
The Fall of the House of Usher
In 1994, Burton was close to directing an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" with a screenplay by Jonathan Gems; he chose to direct Mars Attacks! instead.
The Hawkline Monster
Burton was to direct The Hawkline Monster, a western/monster film that was to star Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson, with a screenplay by Jonathan Gems; he chose to direct Mars Attacks! instead.
Dinosaurs Attack!
Around 1995, writer Jonathan Gems wrote a screenplay for a film adaptation of Dinosaurs Attack!, with Burton as director. However, both Burton and Gems came to the conclusion that the project was too similar to Jurassic Park.
Toots and the Upside Down House
In 1996, when Burton was the CEO and founder of Walt Disney Animation Studios' stop-motion studio division Skellington Productions, he was going to produce the studio's planned third film, Toots and the Upside Down House, that was based on the book by Carol Hughes where a young girl still grieving over the death of her mother goes to a fantasy world inside her home when her dad still won't pay attention to her, where goblins, fairies and sprites live while helping the fairies battle an evil Jack Frost. Burton was attached to produce it, while Henry Selick was set to direct it (marking the third collaboration between Selick and Burton), with the screenplay written by Steven Soderbergh and co-produced by Disney's film partner at the time Miramax, which would have made it the first original animated film made by the company. However, Disney shut down the film's production, along with Skellington Productions, after the poor box office results of James and the Giant Peach.
Superman Lives
After Kevin Smith had been hired to rewrite a script called Superman Reborn, he suggested Burton to direct. It was Smith who convinced WB to change the title to Superman Lives. Burton signed on with a pay-or-play contract of $5 million and Warner Bros. set a theatrical release date for the summer of 1998, the 60th anniversary of the character's debut in Action Comics. Nicolas Cage was signed on to play Superman, with a $20 million pay-or-play contract, believing he could "reconceive the character". Producer Jon Peters felt Cage could "convince audiences he [Superman] came from outer space." Burton explained Cage's casting would be "the first time you would believe that nobody could recognize Clark Kent as Superman, he [Cage] could physically change his persona." Kevin Spacey was approached for the role of Lex Luthor, while Christopher Walken was Burton's choice for Brainiac, a role also considered for Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman. Sandra Bullock, Courteney Cox and Julianne Moore had been approached for Lois Lane, while Chris Rock was cast as Jimmy Olsen. Michael Keaton confirmed his involvement, but when asked if he would be reprising his role as Batman from Burton's Batman films, he would only reply, "Not exactly."
Burton immediately hired Wesley Strick to write a completely different story about the death and return of Superman. The film entered pre-production in June 1997, Burton gave art director Sylvain Despretz a concept drawing for Brainiac, which Despretz claims was "a cone with a round ball on top, and something that looked like an emaciated skull inside. Imagine you take Merlin's hat, and you stick a fish bowl on top, with a skull in it." Filming was originally set to begin in early 1998. Burton chose Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as his primary filming location for Metropolis, while start dates for filming were pushed back. For budgetary reasons, Warner Bros. ordered another rewrite from Dan Gilroy, delayed the film and ultimately put it on hold in April 1998. Burton then left to direct Sleepy Hollow. Burton has depicted the experience as a difficult one, citing differences with producer Jon Peters and the studio, stating, "I basically wasted a year. A year is a long time to be working with somebody that you don't really want to be working with."
Goosebumps
When the Goosebumps film was in early production and was going to be made by 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks, Burton was originally going to produce it in 1998, with the option to direct. However, the project fell through and was later sold to Sony Pictures Entertainment, resulting in the 2015 film directed by Rob Letterman.
X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes
Burton developed a script for a remake of the 1963 science fiction B-film X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes with writer Bryan Goluboff, but it went unproduced.
Black Sunday
Around this time, Burton considered directing a remake of the 1960 Italian horror film Black Sunday.
2000s
Tim Burton's Lost in Oz
Tim Burton's Lost in Oz would be a television series based on L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz book series. Burton would be its executive producer. A pilot episode was filmed in 2000, but the series became unproduced due to budget constraints.
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
During the mid-2000s, Burton was scheduled to direct a film based on the famous Ripley's Believe It or Not! franchise, with Jim Carrey portraying Robert Ripley and a script by Ed Wood scribes Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski; the film ran over budget however, and was shelved by Paramount Pictures. Burton moved on to direct Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and on October 23, 2008, Chris Columbus took over the Ripley's Believe It or Not! film, with Carrey still portraying Ripley, and on January 12, 2011, it was reported that Eric Roth will write a new script.
The Nightmare Before Christmas sequel
In 2001, The Walt Disney Company began to consider producing a sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas, but rather than using stop motion, Disney wanted to use computer animation. Burton convinced Disney to drop the idea. "I was always very protective of Nightmare not to do sequels or things of that kind," Burton explained. "You know, 'Jack visits Thanksgiving world' or other kinds of things just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people that like it... Because it's a mass-market kind of thing, it was important to kind of keep that purity of it."
In 2009, Selick said he would do a film sequel if he and Burton could create a good story for it. In February 2019, it was reported that a new Nightmare Before Christmas film was in the works, with Disney considering either a stop-motion sequel or live-action remake. In October 2019, Chris Sarandon expressed interest on reprising his role as Jack Skellington if a sequel film ever materializes.
Planets of the Apes sequel
After the financial success of Planet of the Apes, Burton supposed that 20th Century Fox would hire him to make a sequel, that was planned to explain the cliffhanger ending of the first film, but instead the studio decided to reboot the franchise and in 2011, released Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
Batman: The Musical
In 2002, Burton, Jim Steinman, and David Ives had worked on a theatre production called Batman: The Musical. Steinman has revealed five songs from the musical. The first is the opening theme for "Gotham City" and the entry of Batman with his tortured solo "The Graveyard Shift"; followed by "The Joker's Song (Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?)", "The Catwoman's Song (I Need All The Love I Can Get)", "We're Still The Children We Once Were" (the climactic sequence) and "In The Land Of The Pig The Butcher Is King", sung by the corrupt blood-suckers ruling Gotham, covered on the Meat Loaf album Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose. After production was cancelled, these songs were released on the Batman: The Musical memorial site.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory musical
During production on the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a Broadway musical was planned to accompany it. The studio and Burton reiterated their interest in May 2003, however, the project was cancelled by the time the film was released.
Third Pee-wee Herman film
In 2008, Paul Reubens approached Burton with one of two scripts and talked to Johnny Depp about the possibility of having him portray Pee-wee in a potential third film, but they both declined.
9 sequel
In an interview with 9 director Shane Acker: "I think there is definitely room. I mean, the way we end the film, there is a slight suggestion that it may be a new beginning. And I think we could continue the journey from where we left off and see how these creatures are existing in a world in which the natural environment is coming back and perhaps even threatening them in some way. Do they make the decision to not affect it, or do they try to affect it in some way? And do they still try to hold on to that humanity within them or do they recognize themselves at being machines too and go off on a different trajectory? So there's lots of idea that I think that we could play with and make another story out of."
No plans for a sequel have been made, but possibilities were mentioned via the film's 2009 DVD commentary. Director Acker has also mentioned the possibility of a sequel being made because of the lack of darker animated films, claiming that everything is G- and PG-rated with little to no dark elements. In 2009 he said that he will continue to make darker animated films, either doing so with a sequel to 9 or original ideas for future films. Before the theatrical release of the film, Acker and Tim Burton stated they were open for a sequel, depending on how well the film was received. Since the film's home release, there have been no further mentions of a sequel, with Acker focusing on projects announced in 2012 (Deep) and 2013 (Beasts of Burden), neither of which have been released as of December 2017.
2010s
Addams Family stop-motion animated film
In 2010, it was announced that Illumination Entertainment, in partnership with Universal Pictures, had acquired the underlying rights to the Addams Family drawings. The film was planned to be a stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams's original drawings. Burton was set to co-write and co-produce the film, with a possibility to direct. In July 2013, it was reported that the film was cancelled. On October 31, 2013, it was announced in Variety that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer would be reviving The Addams Family as an animated film with Pamela Pettler to write the screenplay and Andrew Mittman and Kevin Miserocchi to executive produce the film and were in final negotiations with BermanBraun's Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun to produce. By October 2017, Conrad Vernon had been hired to direct the film, which he will also produce along with Berman and Alex Schwartz, based on a screenplay written by Pettler, with revisions by Matt Lieberman. The film turned into the critically panned The Addams Family that was released on October 11, 2019. Burton would eventually return to the property in 2020, helping to develop a live-action television reboot with Miles Millar and Alfred Gough as showrunners.
Monsterpocalypse
In May 2010, DreamWorks announced that it had acquired the rights to a film adaptation of Monsterpocalypse, a Kaiju-themed collectible miniatures game. The studio had approached Burton for the project. On July 19, 2010, it was confirmed that Burton was attached to direct, but the film went unproduced partly due to Guillermo del Toro has made his own Kaiju film called Pacific Rim in 2013. However, on May 3, 2016, Warner Bros acquired the project and hired Fede Álvarez to direct and co-write the film with Rodo Sayagues.
Alice in Wonderland musical
Stage adaptation Walt Disney Theatrical was in early talks with Burton and screenwriter Linda Woolverton to develop Alice in Wonderland as a Broadway musical. Woolverton authored the screenplay for Disney's The Lion King and is also the Tony Award-nominated book writer of Beauty and the Beast, Aida, and Lestat. Burton would have also rendered the overall designs for the stage musical. Woolverton would have adapted her screenplay for the stage production. Direction and choreography would have been done by Rob Ashford. The musical was aiming to make its world-premiere in London.
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
In March 2011, it was announced that Burton was attached to direct a film of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, which was supposed to feature and be co-produced by Josh Brolin but the film has been scrapped.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
In June 2011, it was reported that Burton was being considered to be selected as the director for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, the fifth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, but he chose to direct Frankenweenie.
Maleficent
Burton was briefly attached to direct Maleficent for Walt Disney Pictures in 2011, but chose to pursue Dark Shadows and Frankenweenie instead.
Dark Shadows sequel
On December 7, 2011, Pfeiffer told MTV that she is hoping sequels will be made for the film. On May 8, 2012, Variety reported that Warner Bros. may want to turn Dark Shadows into a film franchise. On May 18, 2012, Collider mentioned that the ending of Dark Shadows lends itself to a possible sequel. When Burton was asked if he thought that this could be a possible start to a franchise, he replied, "No. Because of the nature of it being like a soap opera, that was the structure. It wasn't a conscious decision. First of all, it's a bit presumptuous to think that. If something works out, that's one thing, but you can't ever predict that. The ending had more to do with the soap opera structure of it."
Pinocchio
Robert Downey Jr. enlisted Burton to direct a Warner Bros. retelling of The Adventures of Pinocchio in 2012. Burton pursued Big Eyes and Ben Stiller was attached to direct.
Deep
On June 11, 2012, Shane Acker confirmed that Burton would work with Valve to create his next animated feature film, Deep. Like 9, the film will take place in a post-apocalyptic world (although set in a different universe). Deep would have been another darker animated film, as Shane Acker has expressed his interest in creating more PG-13 animated films. Since then, there has been no further announcements. However, despite the silence from Acker, in January 2017, the Facebook profile of the character "the Scientist" was updated with a rather cryptic message. The profile had been inactive since 2009, leading some to speculate the teasing of a sequel.
The Last American Vampire
On June 22, 2012, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, based on novel of the same name, was released to theaters, with Timur Bekmambetov as director and Burton in a producing role, leading to speculation that the sequel book The Last American Vampire would be adapted as well. However, due to the film bombing in the box office and poor critical receptions, talks of a sequel were scrapped.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children sequels
On September 30, 2016, Burton's adaptation of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was released, leading to speculation that the sequel novels (Hollow City and Library of Souls) would be adapted as well. However, due to the mediocre box office returns of Peculiar Children, talks of a sequel have been scrapped.
References
Unrealized projects
Lists of unrealized projects by artist
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Personalized medicine, also referred to as precision medicine, is a medical model that separates people into different groups—with medical decisions, practices, interventions and/or products being tailored to the individual patient based on their predicted response or risk of disease. The terms personalized medicine, precision medicine, stratified medicine and P4 medicine are used interchangeably to describe this concept though some authors and organisations use these expressions separately to indicate particular nuances.
While the tailoring of treatment to patients dates back at least to the time of Hippocrates, the term has risen in usage in recent years given the growth of new diagnostic and informatics approaches that provide understanding of the molecular basis of disease, particularly genomics. This provides a clear evidence base on which to stratify (group) related patients.
Among 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering, initiative sponsored by National Academy of Engineering (NAE), personalized medicine has been identified as a key and prospective approach to “achieve optimal individual health decisions”, therefore overcoming the challenge of “Engineer better medicines”.
Development of concept
In personalised medicine, diagnostic testing is often employed for selecting appropriate and optimal therapies based on the context of a patient's genetic content or other molecular or cellular analysis. The use of genetic information has played a major role in certain aspects of personalized medicine (e.g. pharmacogenomics), and the term was first coined in the context of genetics, though it has since broadened to encompass all sorts of personalization measures, including the use of proteomics, imaging analysis, nanoparticle-based theranostics, among others.
Background
Basics
Every person has a unique variation of the human genome. Although most of the variation between individuals has no effect on health, an individual's health stems from genetic variation with behaviors and influences from the environment.
Modern advances in personalized medicine rely on technology that confirms a patient's fundamental biology, DNA, RNA, or protein, which ultimately leads to confirming disease. For example, personalised techniques such as genome sequencing can reveal mutations in DNA that influence diseases ranging from cystic fibrosis to cancer. Another method, called RNA-seq, can show which RNA molecules are involved with specific diseases. Unlike DNA, levels of RNA can change in response to the environment. Therefore, sequencing RNA can provide a broader understanding of a person's state of health. Recent studies have linked genetic differences between individuals to RNA expression, translation, and protein levels.
The concepts of personalised medicine can be applied to new and transformative approaches to health care. Personalised health care is based on the dynamics of systems biology and uses predictive tools to evaluate health risks and to design personalised health plans to help patients mitigate risks, prevent disease and to treat it with precision when it occurs. The concepts of personalised health care are receiving increasing acceptance with the Veterans Administration committing to personalised, proactive patient driven care for all veterans. In some instances personalised health care can be tailored to the markup of the disease causing agent instead of the patient's genetic markup; examples are drug resistant bacteria or viruses.
Method
In order for physicians to know if a mutation is connected to a certain disease, researchers often do a study called a “genome-wide association study” (GWAS). A GWAS study will look at one disease, and then sequence the genome of many patients with that particular disease to look for shared mutations in the genome. Mutations that are determined to be related to a disease by a GWAS study can then be used to diagnose that disease in future patients, by looking at their genome sequence to find that same mutation. The first GWAS, conducted in 2005, studied patients with age-related macular degeneration (ARMD). It found two different mutations, each containing only a variation in only one nucleotide (called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs), which were associated with ARMD. GWAS studies like this have been very successful in identifying common genetic variations associated with diseases. As of early 2014, over 1,300 GWAS studies have been completed.
Disease risk assessment
Multiple genes collectively influence the likelihood of developing many common and complex diseases. Personalised medicine can also be used to predict a person's risk for a particular disease, based on one or even several genes. This approach uses the same sequencing technology to focus on the evaluation of disease risk, allowing the physician to initiate preventive treatment before the disease presents itself in their patient. For example, if it is found that a DNA mutation increases a person's risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes, this individual can begin lifestyle changes that will lessen their chances of developing Type 2 Diabetes later in life.
Applications
Advances in personalised medicine will create a more unified treatment approach specific to the individual and their genome. Personalised medicine may provide better diagnoses with earlier intervention, and more efficient drug development and more targeted therapies.
Diagnosis and intervention
Having the ability to look at a patient on an individual basis will allow for a more accurate diagnosis and specific treatment plan. Genotyping is the process of obtaining an individual's DNA sequence by using biological assays. By having a detailed account of an individual's DNA sequence, their genome can then be compared to a reference genome, like that of the Human Genome Project, to assess the existing genetic variations that can account for possible diseases. A number of private companies, such as 23andMe, Navigenics, and Illumina, have created Direct-to-Consumer genome sequencing accessible to the public. Having this information from individuals can then be applied to effectively treat them. An individual's genetic make-up also plays a large role in how well they respond to a certain treatment, and therefore, knowing their genetic content can change the type of treatment they receive.
An aspect of this is pharmacogenomics, which uses an individual's genome to provide a more informed and tailored drug prescription. Often, drugs are prescribed with the idea that it will work relatively the same for everyone, but in the application of drugs, there are a number of factors that must be considered. The detailed account of genetic information from the individual will help prevent adverse events, allow for appropriate dosages, and create maximum efficacy with drug prescriptions. For instance, warfarin is the FDA approved oral anticoagulant commonly prescribed to patients with blood clots. Due to warfarin’s significant interindividual variability in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, its rate of adverse events is among the highest of all commonly prescribed drugs. However, with the discovery of polymorphic variants in CYP2C9 and VKORC1 genotypes, two genes that encode the individual anticoagulant response, physicians can use patients’ gene profile to prescribe optimum doses of warfarin to prevent side effects such as major bleeding and to allow sooner and better therapeutic efficacy. The pharmacogenomic process for discovery of genetic variants that predict adverse events to a specific drug has been termed toxgnostics.
An aspect of a theranostic platform applied to personalized medicine can be the use of diagnostic tests to guide therapy. The tests may involve medical imaging such as MRI contrast agents (T1 and T2 agents), fluorescent markers (organic dyes and inorganic quantum dots), and nuclear imaging agents (PET radiotracers or SPECT agents). or in vitro lab test including DNA sequencing and often involve deep learning algorithms that weigh the result of testing for several biomarkers.
In addition to specific treatment, personalised medicine can greatly aid the advancements of preventive care. For instance, many women are already being genotyped for certain mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene if they are predisposed because of a family history of breast cancer or ovarian cancer. As more causes of diseases are mapped out according to mutations that exist within a genome, the easier they can be identified in an individual. Measures can then be taken to prevent a disease from developing. Even if mutations were found within a genome, having the details of their DNA can reduce the impact or delay the onset of certain diseases. Having the genetic content of an individual will allow better guided decisions in determining the source of the disease and thus treating it or preventing its progression. This will be extremely useful for diseases like Alzheimer’s or cancers that are thought to be linked to certain mutations in our DNA.
A tool that is being used now to test efficacy and safety of a drug specific to a targeted patient group/sub-group is companion diagnostics. This technology is an assay that is developed during or after a drug is made available on the market and is helpful in enhancing the therapeutic treatment available based on the individual. These companion diagnostics have incorporated the pharmacogenomic information related to the drug into their prescription label in an effort to assist in making the most optimal treatment decision possible for the patient.
Drug development and usage
Having an individual's genomic information can be significant in the process of developing drugs as they await approval from the FDA for public use. Having a detailed account of an individual's genetic make-up can be a major asset in deciding if a patient can be chosen for inclusion or exclusion in the final stages of a clinical trial. Being able to identify patients who will benefit most from a clinical trial will increase the safety of patients from adverse outcomes caused by the product in testing, and will allow smaller and faster trials that lead to lower overall costs. In addition, drugs that are deemed ineffective for the larger population can gain approval by the FDA by using personal genomes to qualify the effectiveness and need for that specific drug or therapy even though it may only be needed by a small percentage of the population.,
Physicians commonly use a trial and error strategy until they find the treatment therapy that is most effective for their patient. With personalized medicine, these treatments can be more specifically tailored by predicting how an individual's body will respond and if the treatment will work based on their genome. This has been summarized as "therapy with the right drug at the right dose in the right patient." Such an approach would also be more cost-effective and accurate. For instance, Tamoxifen used to be a drug commonly prescribed to women with ER+ breast cancer, but 65% of women initially taking it developed resistance. After research by people such as David Flockhart, it was discovered that women with certain mutation in their CYP2D6 gene, a gene that encodes the metabolizing enzyme, were not able to efficiently break down Tamoxifen, making it an ineffective treatment for them. Women are now genotyped for these specific mutations to select the most effective treatment.
Screening for these mutations is carried out via high-throughput screening or phenotypic screening. Several drug discovery and pharmaceutical companies are currently utilizing these technologies to not only advance the study of personalised medicine, but also to amplify genetic research. Alternative multi-target approaches to the traditional approach of "forward" transfection library screening can entail reverse transfection or chemogenomics.
Pharmacy compounding is another application of personalised medicine. Though not necessarily using genetic information, the customized production of a drug whose various properties (e.g. dose level, ingredient selection, route of administration, etc.) are selected and crafted for an individual patient is accepted as an area of personalised medicine (in contrast to mass-produced unit doses or fixed-dose combinations). Computational and mathematical approaches for predicting drug interactions are also being developed. For example, phenotypic response surfaces model the relationships between drugs, their interactions, and an individual's biomarkers.
One active area of research is efficiently delivering personalized drugs generated from pharmacy compounding to the disease sites of the body. For instance, researchers are trying to engineer nanocarriers that can precisely target the specific site by using real-time imaging and analyzing the pharmacodynamics of the drug delivery. Several candidate nanocarriers are being investigated, such as iron oxide nanoparticles, quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, gold nanoparticles, and silica nanoparticles. Alteration of surface chemistry allows these nanoparticles to be loaded with drugs, as well as to avoid the body's immune response, making nanoparticle-based theranostics possible. Nanocarriers' targeting strategies are varied according to the disease. For example, if the disease is cancer, a common approach is to identify the biomarker expressed on the surface of cancer cells and to load its associated targeting vector onto nanocarrier to achieve recognition and binding; the size scale of the nanocarriers will also be engineered to reach the enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR) in tumor targeting. If the disease is localized in the specific organ, such as the kidney, the surface of the nanocarriers can be coated with a certain ligand that binds to the receptors inside that organ to achieve organ-targeting drug delivery and avoid non-specific uptake. Despite the great potential of this nanoparticle-based drug delivery system, the significant progress in the field is yet to be made, and the nanocarriers are still being investigated and modified to meet clinical standards.
Theranostics
Theranostics is a personalised approach to treating cancer, using similar molecules for both imaging (diagnosis) and therapy. The word "theranostics" is derived from the combination of the words "therapeutics" and "diagnostics". It is now most commonly applied to the field of nuclear medicine where radioactive molecules are attached to gamma or positron emitters for SPECT or PET imaging, and to beta, alpha or Auger electrons for therapy. One of the earliest examples is the use of radioactive iodine for treatment of patients with thyroid cancer. Other examples include radio-labelled anti-CD20 antibodies (e.g. Bexxar) for treating lymphoma, Radium-223 for treating bone metastases, Lutetium-177 DOTATATE for treating neuroendocrine tumours and Lutetium-177 PSMA for treating prostate cancer. The most commonly used reagent is Fluorodeoxyglucose, using the isotope fluorine-18
Radiotheranostics
Radiotheranostics is a subspecialty of theranostics using similar pharmaceuticals for both imaging and therapy with radiation. The pharmaceutical or mechanism of localization/action remains the same with the radionuclide being interchangeable with the diagnostic radiopharmaceutical often being a gamma or PET emitter, and the therapeutic radiopharmaceutical often being a beta or alpha emitter. The terms theranostics and theragnostics are interchangeable terms with both having the same meaning and intent. Similar terms radiotheranostics and radiotheragnostics are interchangeable as well. The terms are derived from the Greek words "thera" from "therapeia" meaning healing or to heal, e.g. therapy, and "gnostic" from Greek "gnos" meaning knowledge and to know, e.g. diagnostic. Dosimetry is commonly used to guide clinicians for a personalised/precision therapeutic amount for each patient.
Respiratory proteomics
Respiratory diseases affect humanity globally, with chronic lung diseases (e.g., asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, among others) and lung cancer causing extensive morbidity and mortality. These conditions are
highly heterogeneous and require an early diagnosis. However, initial symptoms are nonspecific, and the clinical diagnosis is made late frequently. Over the last few years, personalized medicine has emerged as a medical care approach that uses novel technology aiming to personalize treatments according to the particular patient's medical needs. In specific, proteomics is used to analyze a series of protein expressions, instead of a single biomarker. Proteins control the body's biological activities including health and disease, so proteomics is helpful in early diagnosis. In the case of respiratory disease, proteomics analyzes several biological samples including serum, blood cells, bronchoalveolar lavage fluids (BAL), nasal lavage fluids (NLF), sputum, among others. The identification and quantification of complete protein expression from these biological samples are conducted by mass spectrometry and advanced analytical techniques. Respiratory proteomics has made significant progress in the development of personalized medicine for supporting health care in recent years. For example, in a study conducted by Lazzari et al. in 2012, the proteomics-based approach has made substantial improvement in identifying multiple biomarkers of lung cancer that can be used in tailoring personalized treatments for individual patients. More and more studies have demonstrated the usefulness of proteomics to provide targeted therapies for respiratory disease.
Cancer genomics
Over recent decades cancer research has discovered a great deal about the genetic variety of types of cancer that appear the same in traditional pathology. There has also been increasing awareness of tumour heterogeneity, or genetic diversity within a single tumour. Among other prospects, these discoveries raise the possibility of finding that drugs that have not given good results applied to a general population of cases may yet be successful for a proportion of cases with particular genetic profiles.
"Personalized Onco-genomics" is the application of personalized medicine to Cancer Genomics, or “oncogenomics”. High-throughput sequencing methods are used to characterize genes associated with cancer to better understand disease pathology and improve drug development. Oncogenomics is one of the most promising branches of genomics, particularly because of its implications in drug therapy. Examples of this include:
Trastuzumab (trade names Herclon, Herceptin) is a monoclonal antibody drug that interferes with the HER2/neu receptor. Its main use is to treat certain breast cancers. This drug is only used if a patient's cancer is tested for over-expression of the HER2/neu receptor. Two tissue-typing tests are used to screen patients for possible benefit from Herceptin treatment. The tissue tests are immunohistochemistry(IHC) and Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization(FISH) Only Her2+ patients will be treated with Herceptin therapy (trastuzumab)
Tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as imatinib (marketed as Gleevec) have been developed to treat chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), in which the BCR-ABL fusion gene (the product of a reciprocal translocation between chromosome 9 and chromosome 22) is present in >95% of cases and produces hyperactivated abl-driven protein signaling. These medications specifically inhibit the Ableson tyrosine kinase (ABL) protein and are thus a prime example of "rational drug design" based on knowledge of disease pathophysiology.
The FoundationOne CDx report produced by Foundation Medicine, which looks at genes in individual patients' tumor biopsies and recommends specific drugs
High mutation burden is indicative of response to immunotherapy, and also specific patterns of mutations have been associated with previous exposure to cytotoxic cancer drugs.
Population screening
Through the use of genomics (microarray), proteomics (tissue array), and imaging (fMRI, micro-CT) technologies, molecular-scale information about patients can be easily obtained. These so-called molecular biomarkers have proven powerful in disease prognosis, such as with cancer. The main three areas of cancer prediction fall under cancer recurrence, cancer susceptibility and cancer survivability. Combining molecular scale information with macro-scale clinical data, such as patients' tumor type and other risk factors, significantly improves prognosis. Consequently, given the use of molecular biomarkers, especially genomics, cancer prognosis or prediction has become very effective, especially when screening a large population. Essentially, population genomics screening can be used to identify people at risk for disease, which can assist in preventative efforts.
Genetic data can be used to construct polygenic scores, which estimate traits such as disease risk by summing the estimated effects of individual variants discovered through a GWAS. These have been used for a wide variety of conditions, such as cancer, diabetes, and coronary artery disease. Many genetic variants are associated with ancestry, and it remains a challenge to both generate accurate estimates and to decouple biologically relevant variants from those that are coincidentally associated. Estimates generated from one population do not usually transfer well to others, requiring sophisticated methods and more diverse and global data. Most studies have used data from those with European ancestry, leading to calls for more equitable genomics practices to reduce health disparities. Additionally, while polygenic scores have some predictive accuracy, their interpretations are limited to estimating an individual's percentile and translational research is needed for clinical use.
Challenges
As personalised medicine is practiced more widely, a number of challenges arise. The current approaches to intellectual property rights, reimbursement policies, patient privacy, data biases and confidentiality as well as regulatory oversight will have to be redefined and restructured to accommodate the changes personalised medicine will bring to healthcare.
For instance, a survey performed in the UK concluded that 63% of UK adults are not comfortable with their personal data being used for the sake of utilizing AI in the medical field. Furthermore, the analysis of acquired diagnostic data is a recent challenge of personalized medicine and its implementation. For example, genetic data obtained from next-generation sequencing requires computer-intensive data processing prior to its analysis.
In the future, adequate tools will be required to accelerate the adoption of personalised medicine to further fields of medicine, which requires the interdisciplinary cooperation of experts from specific fields of research, such as medicine, clinical oncology, biology, and artificial intelligence.
Regulatory oversight
The FDA has already started to take initiatives to integrate personalised medicine into their regulatory policies. An FDA report in October 2013 entitled, “Paving the Way for Personalized Medicine: FDA’s role in a New Era of Medical Product Development,” in which they outlined steps they would have to take to integrate genetic and biomarker information for clinical use and drug development. They determined that they would have to develop specific regulatory science standards, research methods, reference material and other tools in order to incorporate personalised medicine into their current regulatory practices. For example, they are working on a “genomic reference library” for regulatory agencies to compare and test the validity of different sequencing platforms in an effort to uphold reliability. A major challenge for those regulating personalized medicine is a way to demonstrate its effectiveness relative to the current standard of care. The new technology must be assessed for both clinical and cost effectiveness, and as it stands, regulatory agencies have no standardized method.
Intellectual property rights
As with any innovation in medicine, investment and interest in personalised medicine is influenced by intellectual property rights. There has been a lot of controversy regarding patent protection for diagnostic tools, genes, and biomarkers. In June 2013, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that natural occurring genes cannot be patented, while “synthetic DNA” that is edited or artificially- created can still be patented. The Patent Office is currently reviewing a number of issues related to patent laws for personalised medicine, such as whether “confirmatory” secondary genetic tests post initial diagnosis, can have full immunity from patent laws. Those who oppose patents argue that patents on DNA sequences are an impediment to ongoing research while proponents point to research exemption and stress that patents are necessary to entice and protect the financial investments required for commercial research and the development and advancement of services offered.
Reimbursement policies
Reimbursement policies will have to be redefined to fit the changes that personalised medicine will bring to the healthcare system. Some of the factors that should be considered are the level of efficacy of various genetic tests in the general population, cost-effectiveness relative to benefits, how to deal with payment systems for extremely rare conditions, and how to redefine the insurance concept of “shared risk” to incorporate the effect of the newer concept of “individual risk factors". The study, Barriers to the Use of Personalized Medicine in Breast Cancer, took two different diagnostic tests which are BRACAnalysis and Oncotype DX. These tests have over ten-day turnaround times which results in the tests failing and delays in treatments. Patients are not being reimbursed for these delays which results in tests not being ordered. Ultimately, this leads to patients having to pay out-of-pocket for treatments because insurance companies do not want to accept the risks involved.
Patient privacy and confidentiality
Perhaps the most critical issue with the commercialization of personalised medicine is the protection of patients. One of the largest issues is the fear and potential consequences for patients who are predisposed after genetic testing or found to be non-responsive towards certain treatments. This includes the psychological effects on patients due to genetic testing results. The right of family members who do not directly consent is another issue, considering that genetic predispositions and risks are inheritable. The implications for certain ethnic groups and presence of a common allele would also have to be considered.
Moreover, we could refer to the privacy issue at all layers of personalized medicine from discovery to treatment. One of the leading issues is the consent of the patients to have their information used in genetic testing algorithms primarily AI algorithms. The consent of the institution who is providing the data to be used is of prominent concern as well. In 2008, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) was passed in an effort to minimize the fear of patients participating in genetic research by ensuring that their genetic information will not be misused by employers or insurers. On February 19, 2015 FDA issued a press release titled: "FDA permits marketing of first direct-to-consumer genetic carrier test for Bloom syndrome.
Data biases
Data biases also play an integral role in personalized medicine. It is important to ensure that the sample of genes being tested come from different populations. This is to ensure that the samples do not exhibit the same human biases we use in decision making.
Consequently, if the designed algorithms for personalized medicine are biased, then the outcome of the algorithm will also be biased because of the lack of genetic testing in certain populations. For instance, the results from the Framingham Heart Study have led to biased outcomes of predicting the risk of cardiovascular disease. This is because the sample was tested only on white people and when applied to the non-white population, the results were biased with overestimation and underestimation risks of cardiovascular disease.
Implementation
Several issues must be addressed before personalized medicine can be implemented. Very little of the human genome has been analyzed, and even if healthcare providers had access to a patient's full genetic information, very little of it could be effectively leveraged into treatment. Challenges also arise when processing such large amounts of genetic data. Even with error rates as low as 1 per 100 kilobases, processing a human genome could have roughly 30,000 errors. This many errors, especially when trying to identify specific markers, can make discoveries and verifiability difficult. There are methods to overcome this, but they are computationally taxing and expensive. There are also issues from an effectiveness standpoint, as after the genome has been processed, function in the variations among genomes must be analyzed using genome-wide studies. While the impact of the SNPs discovered in these kinds of studies can be predicted, more work must be done to control for the vast amounts of variation that can occur because of the size of the genome being studied. In order to effectively move forward in this area, steps must be taken to ensure the data being analyzed is good, and a wider view must be taken in terms of analyzing multiple SNPs for a phenotype. The most pressing issue that the implementation of personalized medicine is to apply the results of genetic mapping to improve the healthcare system. This is not only due to the infrastructure and technology required for a centralized database of genome data, but also the physicians that would have access to these tools would likely be unable to fully take advantage of them. In order to truly implement a personalized medicine healthcare system, there must be an end-to-end change.
See also
Chemogenomics
Drug discovery
Elective genetic and genomic testing
Foundation Medicine
Next-generation sequencing
Personal genomics
Pharmacodiagnostic testing
Pharmacogenetics
Pharmacogenomics
Phenotypic screening
Race and health
References
Biomarkers
Biotechnology
Chemical pathology
Medical signs
Medical models
Emerging technologies
Personalized medicine
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Télétoon (styled as TĒLĒTOON) is a Canadian French language specialty channel owned by Teletoon Canada, Inc., a subsidiary of Corus Entertainment. Its name is a portmanteau of "télévision" and "cartoon". As of 2013, along with its English language counterpart Teletoon, it is available in over 7.3 million Canadian households.
History
It was licensed in 1996 by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). The French-language channel was the first to be launched, on September 8, 1997. It used the slogan ('The Animation Station', the same as that of the contemporaneous English-language channel), and later added and then switched to Imagine!.
When Télétoon was launched in 1997, it showed more mature fare as the day progressed, with a strong commitment to air diverse and international programming, and the ability to air a great majority of material uncut. A typical broadcast day started with preschool content at 7:00 a.m. EST and ended with adult content after midnight, airing more adult cartoons such as Duckman and various anime programs.
In 1999, Télétoon started airing bumpers with its first mascot, Teletina. These bumpers were made by Spin Productions in Toronto. Several more bumpers using CGI animation with some made by Guru Studio premiered on the channel in 2001. An updated look for the channel, no longer featuring the original logo, was later created for a partial rebranding in 2005. The bumpers were removed in 2007 as part of an on-air rebranding.
On February 5, 2007, Télétoon's on-air appearance and website were dramatically changed, and Le Détour's website was moved to teletoon.com. The look of the channel and the Le Détour block changed. In 2010, Télétoon starting using parodied Roblox figures, blocks, and backgrounds called "Toonmix’". This bumpers were created using Blender 3D. Variants to the bumpers were reduced. Instead, they are speech bubble onscreen graphics telling viewers which shows are coming up next, and used in the "up next" bumper.
On September 5, 2011, Télétoon's branding was changed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of co-owner Astral Media and to reflect the transition from analogue to digital television. Télétoon la Nuit's on-air branding was not changed until 2020.
In August 2015, it was announced that Télétoon Rétro would be shutting down, and some series would be moving to Télétoon on September 1.
Changes in ownership
When launched, the channel was owned by a consortium made up of various other Canadian specialty services and producers; Family Channel acting as managing partner at 53.3% (in a partnership between Astral Media and Western International Communications), YTV at 26.7% (under Shaw Communications), and Cinar and Nelvana with 10% each.
Changes of ownership have occurred since 1999, starting when Corus Entertainment was spun off from Shaw Communications (who had owned a stake of Télétoon through YTV) in 1999. In 2000, Western International Communications (who owned a stake of Télétoon through the Family Channel alongside Astral Media) sold its stake of Télétoon to Corus Entertainment. Corus, in the same year, acquired Nelvana, another company who own a stake of Télétoon. Due to a complain from the CRTC, Corus sold the stake to Astral Media in 2001. Through various acquisitions over the years, Cinar Films came to own a 20% stake, and Astral Media and Corus Entertainment each owned a 40% stake. In 2006, Cinar sold 10% of its stake of Teletoon to each of Astral and Corus, leading the two companies to each own 50% in Télétoon.
On March 4, 2013, Corus Entertainment announced that it would acquire Astral Media's 50% ownership interest in Teletoon Canada (owner of Teletoon, Télétoon, Teletoon Retro, Télétoon Rétro and Cartoon Network). The purchase was in relation to Bell Media's pending takeover of Astral. The takeover had been rejected by the CRTC in October 2012, but was restructured to allow the sale of certain Astral Media properties so that the purchase could clear regulatory barriers. Bell filed a new application for the proposed takeover with the CRTC on March 6, 2013. Corus's purchase was cleared by the Competition Bureau on March 18; the CRTC approved the Bell-Astral merger on June 27, 2013. On December 20, 2013, the CRTC approved Corus's full ownership of Teletoon Canada and it was purchased by Corus on January 1, 2014. The channel continues to be owned by Teletoon Canada, now wholly owned by Corus Entertainment under its Corus Kids and Corus Média divisions.
Programming
Many of the shows broadcast on Télétoon are those shown on its English-language counterpart dubbed into French. At first, both networks had identical schedules, airing the same episode of the same program at the same time. Nowadays, the schedules sometimes differ, because Télétoon carries some translated programs that its English-language counterpart does not, as they are aired on other cable networks. Many of the shows, such as The Simpsons and King of the Hill, are dubbed using domestic Québécois voice-over actors, while others, such as Naruto and virtually all series originating from Cartoon Network, utilize dubs mainly meant for audiences in Metropolitan France.
Original series
At its inception in 1997, the channel had a stated goal of producing 78 half-hours of original content every year, and it has been active in commissioning programming since then. The licence granted by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 1996 required a gradual increase in the portion of Canadian programming on the schedule by about five percent each year starting from 40% in its first year of operation to 60% by 2002. In 1998, network management decided to focus on renewals instead of new shows – adopting a more cautious strategy than launching a significant number of new series, as it had in the prior year. By 2001, however, the station was noted as possibly being the Canadian channel with the highest spending on original production, having invested in 98 series, including 225 half-hour episodes that fall season.
Variant
As a bilingual service, Teletoon/Télétoon maintains two separate broadcast feeds, with a single licence for the English- and French-language channels. It is one of only two Canadian specialty services with such a licence. At the original licensing hearing before the CRTC, the network's operators had stated that the two channels "would be similar in nature and programmed with a similar attitude towards them. But for the reasons of rights availability, for the reasons of the question of advertising to children in Québec and for the reason of dealing with the differences in the market, there might be variations in the services offered." To this end, the station implemented a requirement that all original programming be delivered in both languages. By 2007, however, this condition had been relaxed to apply "whenever possible", and over the following years some original series were only shown on one of the channels.
Current programming
As of February 2022:
Bakugan: Battle Planet
Batman (Batman: The Animated Series)
Beyblade Burst
Boni
Bravest Warriors
Cupcake et Dino: Services en tout genre (Cupcake and Dino: General Services)
DC Super Hero Girls
D.N. Ace
Douggy et Pony font leur show (The Dog and Pony Show)
Les Fungies (The Fungies!)
Garderie extrême (Total Dramarama)
Hôtel Transylvanie (Hotel Transylvania)
Il pleut des hamburgers (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs)
Le Laboratoire de Dexter (Dexter's Laboratory)
Lego City Adventures
Lego Ninjago
Looney Tunes Cartoons
Mon derrière perd la tête (The Day My Butt Went Psycho!)
Mysticons
Nouvelle Ligue des justiciers (Justice League Unlimited)
Ollie et le monstrosac (Ollie's Pack)
Pète le vœu (Wishfart)
Pokémon
Power Rangers
La Retenue (Detentionaire)
Scooby-Doo et Compagnie (Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?)
Les Simpson (The Simpsons)
Sourire d'enfer (Braceface)
Teen Titans Go!
Le Tom et Jerry Show (2014) (The Tom and Jerry Show (2014))
Transformers: Cyberverse
Unikitty!
Winston et Dudley Ding Dong (Winston Steinburger and Sir Dudley Ding Dong)
Former programming
Les 3 Amigonautes (3 Amigonauts)
3 et Moi (My Life Me)
6teen
Ace Ventura (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective)
Adventure Time avec Finn et Jake (Adventure Time)
Affreux Vilains Martiens (Butt-Ugly Martians)
Air Academy (Flight Squad)
Les Amis ratons (The Raccoons)
Angela Anaconda
Angry Birds Toons
Arc-en-ciel le plus beau poisson des océans (Rainbow Fish)
Archie, Mystères et Compagnie (Archie's Weird Mysteries)
Atomic Betty
Atomic Puppet
Avengers: L'équipe des supers héros (The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes)
Avengers Rassemblement (Avengers Assemble)
Les aventures d'Ollivier (Olliver's Adventures)
Les Aventures d'une mouche (Fly Tales)
Les Aventures de l'Ours Paddington (The Adventures of Paddington Bear)
Axel et les Power Players
Baby Looney Tunes
Bagel et Becky (The Bagel and Becky Show)
Bakugan Battle Brawlers
Barbe-Rouge (Captain Red Beard)
Les Baskerville (The Baskervilles)
Batman (The Batman)
Batman : L'Alliance des héros (Batman: The Brave and the Bold)
Batman, la relève (Batman Beyond)
Battle B-Daman (B-Daman Crossfire)
Beetlejuice
Ben 10 (2005)
Ben 10 (2016)
Ben 10: Alien Force
Ben 10: Omniverse
Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
Bric-a-Brac
2 Stupid Dogs
Bêtes à craquer (Animal Crackers)
Beyblade
Beyblade: Metal Fusion
Billy the Cat, dans la peau d'un chat (Billy the Cat)
Billy et Mandy, aventuriers de l'au-delà (The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy)
Bip Bip et Coyote (The Road Runner Show)
Bizzareville (Freaktown)
Blaise le blasé (Fred's Head)
Blake et Mortimer (Blake and Mortimer)
Bob Et Scott (Bob And Scott)
La Boucle (Looped)
Bratz
Bugs Bunny et Tweety (The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show)
Bugs et les Looney Tunes (New Looney Tunes)
Bunnicula
Le Bus magique (The Magic School Bus)
Ça passe ou ça casse (Hole in the Wall)
Cadillacs et Dinosaures (Cadillacs and Dinosaurs)
Caillou
Camp Lazlo
Camp Marécage (Camp Lakebottom)
Capitaine Star (Captain Star)
Carl au carré (Carl²)
Carrément chat (Counterfeit Cat)
Ce Cher Ed (Best Ed)
Chaotic
Chop Chop Ninja
Chop Chop Ninja Challenge
Chop Socky Chooks
Chowder
Les Chroniques de Matt Hatter (Matt Hatter Chronicles)
La Classe en Délire (The Kids from Room 402)
Classe des Titans (Class of the Titans)
Cléo et Chico (Cow and Chicken)
Colis de la Planète X (Packages from Planet X)
Collège Rhino Véloce (Flying Rhino Junior High)
Courage, le chien froussard (Courage the Cowardly Dog)
Cracké (Cracked)
Creepschool
Crypte Show (Tales from the Cryptkeeper)
Cybersix
Défis extrêmes (Total Drama)
Défis extrêmes : L'absurdicourse (Total Drama Presents the Ridiculous Race)
Delilah et Julius (Delilah & Julius)
Di-Gata les défenseurs (Di-Gata Defenders)
Digimon
Dilbert
Dinofroz
Donkey Kong
Dr. Pantastique (Dr. Dimensionpants)
DreamWorks Dragons
Drôles de colocs (Endangered Species)
Drôle de voyou (Bad Dog)
Duck Dodgers
Eckhart
Ed, Edd et Eddy (Ed, Edd n Eddy)
Édouard (Edward)
Edouard et Martin (Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse)
Les Enquêtes de Miss Mallard (A Miss Mallard Mystery)
Épopée vers l'Ouest - La Légende du singe roi (Journey to the West – Legends of the Monkey King)
Les Exploits d'Arsène Lupin (Night Hood)
Fifi Brindacier (Pippi Longstocking)
Foster, la maison des amis imaginaires (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends)
Les Fous du volant (1968) (Wacky Races (1968))
Les Fous du volant (2017) (Wacky Races (2017))
Frankie et les ZhuZhu Pets (The ZhuZhus)
Fred des Cavernes (Fred the Caveman)
Fusée XL5 (Fireball XL5)
Le futur est .... wow ! (The Future is Wild)
Futz!
GeoFreakZ
George de la jungle (George of the Jungle)
Gerald McBoing-Boing
Gormiti (2018)
Grabujband (Grojband)
Les Graffitos (Stickin' Around)
Green Lantern
Gribouille (Doodlez)
Hamtaro (2002)
Harry et ses dinosaures (Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs)
L'Heure de la terreur (R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour)
Hot Wheels Battle Force 5
Hulk et les agents du S.M.A.S.H (Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.)
Iggy Arbuckle
Inspecteur Gadget (2015) (Inspector Gadget (2015))
Iron Man: Armored Adventures
Ivanhoé
Les Jetson (The Jetsons)
Jimmy délire (Out of Jimmy's Head)
Jimmy l'Intrépide (Jimmy Two-Shoes)
Johnny Bravo
Johnny Test
Les Jumeaux Zimmer (The Zimmer Twins)
Juniper Lee (The Life and Times of Juniper Lee)
Kappa Mikey
Kaput et Zösky (Kaput and Zösky)
Kid Paddle
Le Lapinet Discret (Untalkative Bunny)
Les Lapins Crétins Invasion (Rabbids Invasion)
La Légende de Calamity Jane (The Legend of Calamity Jane)
Legends of Chima
Lego Hero Factory
Lego Nexo Knights
La ligue des justiciers : Action (Justice League Action)
La ligue des justiciers: Nouvelle génération (Young Justice)
Looney Tunes
Ma gardienne est un vampire (My Babysitter's a Vampire)
Le Magicien d'Oz : Dorothy et ses amis (Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz)
Marguerite et la bête féroce (Maggie and the Ferocious Beast)
Medabots
Méga Bébés (Mega Babies)
MegaMan NT Warrior
Megas XLR
MetaJets
Mike, Lu et Og (Mike, Lu & Og)
Les Mini-Tuques (Snowsnaps)
Minus et Cortex (Pinky and the Brain)
Miss Spider : La série animée (Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends)
Moi Willy, fils de rock-star (My Dad the Rock Star)
Mon copain de classe est un singe (My Gym Partner's a Monkey)
Le Monde de Blaster (Blaster's Universe)
Le Monde de Quest (World of Quest)
Le Monde incroyable de Gumball (The Amazing World of Gumball)
Monsieur Belette (I Am Weasel)
Moumoute, un mouton dans la ville (Sheep in the Big City)
¡Mucha Lucha!
Mudpit
Mythologies : les gardiens de la légende (Mythic Warriors: Guardians of the Legend)
Nanook (Nanook's Great Hunt)
Naruto
Ned et son triton (Ned's Newt)
Nom de code : Kids Next Door (Codename: Kids Next Door)
Oh non ! Des aliens ! (Oh No! It's an Alien Invasion!)
Les Oursons Du Square Théodore (The Upstairs Downstairs Bears)
Ozzy et Drix (Ozzy & Drix)
Patates et Dragons (Potatoes and Dragons)
Patrouille 03 (Patrol 03)
Au pays des Têtes à claques (Knuckleheads)
Pecola
La Petite Patrouille (Toad Patrol)
Les Pierrafeu (The Flintstones)
Pikwik Pack
Pingu
Pirate Express
Planète Sketch (Planet Sketch)
PorCité (Pig City)
Pour le meilleur et pour le pire (For Better or For Worse)
Pourquoi pas Mimi ? (What About Mimi?)
Prenez garde à Batman ! (Beware the Batman)
Princesse Sissi (Princess Sissi)
Quoi d'neuf, Scooby-Doo ? (What's New, Scooby-Doo?)
Ratz
Redakai, les conquerants du Kairu (Redakai: Conquer the Kairu)
Redwall
Regular Show
Ren et Stimpy (The Ren & Stimpy Show)
Ricky Sprocket (Ricky Sprocket: Showbiz Boy)
Robin des Bois Junior (Young Robin Hood)
RoboBlatte (RoboRoach)
Rocko et compagnie (Rocko's Modern Life)
Sabrina, la série animée (Sabrina: The Animated Series)
Sacré Andy ! (What's with Andy?)
Sacrés Dragons (Blazing Dragons)
Sakura, chasseuse de cartes (Cardcaptors Sakura)
Sam et Max : Privés de police!!! (The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police)
Samba et Leuk (Kassai and Luk)
Sammy et Scooby en folie (Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!)
Santo Bugito
Les Saturdays (The Secret Saturdays)
Les Sauveteurs du monde (Rescue Heroes)
Scooby-Doo
Scooby-Doo! Mystère associés (Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated)
Silverwing
Simon au pays des dessins à la craie (Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings)
Les Singestronautes (Rocket Monkeys)
Skatoony
Sonic le Rebelle (Sonic Underground)
SOS Fantômes (The Real Ghostbusters)
Le Spectaculaire Spider-Man (The Spectacular Spider-Man)
Spider Riders
Spiez, nouvelle génération (The Amazing Spiez!)
Splat!
Splatalot!
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Starship Troopers
Stoked : Ça va surfer ! (Stoked)
The Super Hero Squad Show
Les Supers Nanas (The Powerpuff Girls)
Supernoobs
Super Zéro (The Tick)
Le Surfer d'Argent (Silver Surfer)
Têtes à claques
Thundercats RRRR (Thundercats Roar)
Les Tiny Toons (Tiny Toon Adventures)
Titi et Grominet mènent l'enquête (The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries)
Les Tofou (The Tofus)
Tom et Jerry (Tom and Jerry)
Tom et Jerry Tales (Tom and Jerry Tales)
ToonMarty
Les Tortues Ninja (2003) (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003))
Les Tortues Ninja (2012) (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012))
Ted Sieger's Wildlife (1999)
Totally Spies!
Touftoufs et polluards (The Smoggies)
Transformers: Animated
Transformers: Cybertron
Transformers: Energon
Les Trois Petites Sœurs (The Triplets)
Trop cool, Scooby-Doo ! (Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!)
Ultimate Spider-Man
Un écureuil chez moi (Squirrel Boy)
Un monstre en boîte (Monster in a Box)
Un trésor dans mon jardin (A Treasure in My Garden)
Va-t'en Licorne (Go Away, Unicorn!)
Votez Becky! (Majority Rules!)
W
Wally Gator
Wayside
Wild C.A.T.s
Wolverine et les X-Men (Wolverine and the X-Men)
X-Men
Yabba-Dabba Dinosaures (Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs)
Yakkity Yak
Yogi et ses amis (The Yogi Bear Show)
Yoko! Jakamoko! Toto!
Yo-kai Watch
Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V
Zeroman
Les Zinzins de l'espace (Space Goofs)
Les Zybrides (Spliced)
Programming blocks
Current
– is a Saturday morning programming block from 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET; this block was formerly known as .
– is a block on Saturdays at 4 p.m. and Sundays at 10 a.m. ET, that mostly airs animated movies (such as Tom and Jerry: The Movie, The Powerpuff Girls Movie and Looney Tunes movies, among others). It also airs live action movies such as the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. This block was formerly known as and .
Télétoon la nuit – animated programming targeted towards teen and adult audiences airs during the nighttime hours as part of the programming block (formerly , then ), the French version of the now-defunct Teletoon at Night (formerly ), which is similar in format to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. starts at 8 p.m.
Yearly
– the block replaces morning programming during the summer vacation period from July to August, containing some of the channel's popular programs, and daily movies. However, in the summer of 2009, was placed on hiatus, with taking its place. The block returned in the summer of 2012, now airing weeknights from 9:00 to 12:00 a.m. ET.
– this block features holiday specials.
Former
Original blocks – in 1997, Télétoon chose a different style of animation for each block. Each blocks were represented as planets: Claymation for Pre-School (4 a.m. to 3 p.m.), Cel animation for Kids (3 p.m. to 6 p.m.), Collage for Family (6 p.m. to 9 p.m.) and Paper mache for Adult (9 p.m. to 4 a.m.). Each block's bumpers were made by Cuppa Coffee Studios.
– launched in 2000, is a teen and adult-oriented block of the channel; it co-existed with until the block merged with it in 2004.
Télétoon Kapow! – Launched in September 2003, Kapow! was an action block, which featured the shows Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spider Riders, MegaMan NT Warrior and The Batman. Kapow! was usually shown on weekend mornings in large blocks, although it did air in smaller blocks during the weekdays. Teletoon Kapow! was used as the name of the Canadian Cartoon Network channel license.
– was created on September 3, 2007 and air every weekday from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. with different shows every day. Throughout the week, viewers could vote online on the Télétoon website to pick one show that would air during the block. Once a month, five viewers each got to choose the shows for an entire weekday afternoon.
– the block aired weekday mornings from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. ET and on Saturday mornings. It aired shows such as Out of Jimmy's Head, Chowder, and Jimmy Two-Shoes.
– the block aired on Monday through Thursdays and Sunday from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. ET. On Thursdays, it was called , and it aired new episodes of The Simpsons, Johnny Test, Jimmy Two-Shoes, Stoked, Total Drama, Majority Rules! and 6teen.
Télétoon Rétro – was the brand for Télétoon's blocks of classic animated programming. In Fall 2008, a digital channel under the same name was launched, featuring classic animated programs.
Mission:Action – The Mission:Action block aired on weekdays starting at 4:00 p.m. ET, and on Sunday mornings/afternoons. It featured action series such as The Secret Saturdays, Bakugan Battle Brawlers, Chop Socky Chooks, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Naruto, Wolverine and the X-Men, Johnny Test, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Chaotic, Totally Spies!, The Super Hero Squad Show and The Spectacular Spider-Man. New additions included Power Rangers Samurai, The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Hot Wheels Battle Force 5, The Amazing Spiez!, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders.
Télétoon Jr. - The Télétoon Jr. block aired weekdays starting at 9:00 a.m. ET. A video-on-demand channel also exist which run a different set of series than those featured on the block.
– is a programming block airing on Thursday evenings from 6 to 9 p.m. ET.
– is an action-oriented programming block airing Friday evenings from 6:30 to 9 p.m. ET.
Related services
Télétoon Sur Demande
is a video on demand channel featuring series from Télétoon.
English services
Teletoon and Cartoon Network are the English counterpart and sister channel to Télétoon, respectively. They broadcast most of the shows from its French-language counterpart in English.
Télétoon HD
On March 24, 2014, Télétoon launched a high definition feed called Télétoon HD, which simulcasts the standard definition feed. The channel is available on Cogeco, then on Vidéotron and Bell Fibe TV.
Former
Télétoon Jr. Sur Demande
was a video on demand multiplex channel and was named after a program block featuring animated series aimed at younger children's; shows included on the channel have included such shows as Caillou, Atomic Betty, George of the Jungle, The Future is Wild, and Bobby's World. The service was discontinued some time in 2018.
Télétoon Rétro
was a Category B digital cable and satellite channel that debuted on September 4, 2008. It was named after a program block featuring classic animated series. channel's programs have included The Tom and Jerry Show, The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show, Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones, The Raccoons, The Jetsons, Astro Boy, and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. The channel closed on September 1, 2015 and was replaced by La Chaîne Disney.
References
External links
Télétoon la Nuit
Télétoon Corporative Website
Télétoon logo
Analog cable television networks in Canada
Corus Entertainment
Television channels and stations established in 1997
1997 establishments in Canada
French-language television networks in Canada
Children's television networks in Canada
hy:Télétoon
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OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a collaborative project to create a free editable geographic database of the world. The geodata underlying the maps is considered the primary output of the project. The creation and growth of OSM has been motivated by restrictions on use or availability of map data across much of the world, and the advent of inexpensive portable satellite navigation devices.
Created by Steve Coast in the UK in 2004, it was inspired by the success of Wikipedia and the predominance of proprietary map data in the UK and elsewhere. Since then, it has grown to over two million registered users. Users may collect data using manual survey, GPS devices, aerial photography, and other free sources, or use their own local knowledge of the area. This crowdsourced data is then made available under the Open Database License. The site is supported by the OpenStreetMap Foundation, a non-profit organisation registered in England and Wales.
The data from OSM can be used in various ways including production of paper maps and electronic maps, geocoding of address and place names, and route planning. Prominent users include Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon Logistics, Uber, Craigslist, Snapchat, OsmAnd, Wikimedia Maps, Maps.me, MapQuest Open, JMP statistical software, and Foursquare. Many users of GPS devices use OSM data to replace the built-in map data on their devices. OpenStreetMap data has been favourably compared with proprietary datasources, although data quality varied across the world.
History
Steve Coast founded the project in 2004, initially focusing on mapping the United Kingdom. In the UK and elsewhere, government-run and tax-funded projects like the Ordnance Survey created massive datasets but failed to freely and widely distribute them. The first contribution, made in the British city of London in 2005, was thought to be a road by the Directions Mag.
In April 2006, the OpenStreetMap Foundation was established to encourage the growth, development and distribution of free geospatial data and provide geospatial data for anybody to use and share. In December 2006, Yahoo! confirmed that OpenStreetMap could use its aerial photography as a backdrop for map production.
In April 2007, Automotive Navigation Data (AND) donated a complete road data set for the Netherlands and trunk road data for India and China to the project and by July 2007, when the first OSM international The State of the Map conference was held, there were 9,000 registered users. Sponsors of the event included Google, Yahoo! and Multimap. In October 2007, OpenStreetMap completed the import of a US Census TIGER road dataset. In December 2007, Oxford University became the first major organisation to use OpenStreetMap data on their main website.
Ways to import and export data have continued to grow – by 2008, the project developed tools to export OpenStreetMap data to power portable GPS units, replacing their existing proprietary and out-of-date maps. In March, two founders announced that they have received venture capital funding of €2.4million for CloudMade, a commercial company that uses OpenStreetMap data. In November 2010, Bing changed their licence to allow use of their satellite imagery for making maps.
In 2012, the launch of pricing for Google Maps led several prominent websites to switch from their service to OpenStreetMap and other competitors. Chief among these were Foursquare and Craigslist, which adopted OpenStreetMap, and Apple, which ended a contract with Google and launched a self-built mapping platform using TomTom and OpenStreetMap data.
In 2017, DigitalGlobe started providing satellite imagery to aid OpenStreetMap contributions.
In June 2021, OpenStreetMap Foundation announced plans to move from the United Kingdom to a country in the European Union, citing Brexit as the inciting factor. According to the organisation, there are several reasons for the move, including "the failure of the UK and EU to agree on mutual recognition of database rights", the rising difficulties in "banking, finance and using PayPal in the UK" and the loss of .eu domains.
Map production
Map data is collected from scratch by volunteers performing systematic ground surveys using tools such as a handheld GPS unit, a notebook, digital camera, or a voice recorder. The data is then entered into the OpenStreetMap database using a number of software tools including JOSM and Mercator. Mapathon competition events are also held by OpenStreetMap team and by non-profit organisations and local governments to map a particular area.
The availability of aerial photography and other data from commercial and government sources has added important sources of data for manual editing and automated imports. Special processes are in place to handle automated imports and avoid legal and technical problems.
Software for editing maps
Editing of maps can be done using the default web browser editor called iD, an HTML5 application using D3.js and written by Mapbox, which was originally financed by the Knight Foundation. JOSM, Potlatch, and Merkaartor are more powerful desktop editing applications that are better suited for advanced users.
Vespucci is the primary full-featured editor for Android; it was released in 2009. StreetComplete is an Android app launched in 2016, which allows users without any OpenStreetMap knowledge to answer simple quests for existing data in OpenStreetMap, and thus contribute data. Maps.me and OsmAnd, two offline map mobile applications available for Android and iOS, both include limited OSM data editors. Go Map!! is an iOS app that lets users create and edit information in OpenStreetMap. Pushpin is another iOS app that lets users add POI on the go.
Contributors
The project has a geographically diverse user-base, due to emphasis of local knowledge and "on-the-ground" sitation in the process of data collection. Many early contributors were cyclists who survey with and for bicyclists, charting cycleroutes and navigable trails. Others are GIS professionals who contribute data with Esri tools. Contributors are predominately men, with only 3–5% being women.
By August 2008, shortly after the second The State of the Map conference was held, there were over 50,000 registered contributors; by March 2009, there were 100,000 and by the end of 2009 the figure was nearly 200,000. In April 2012, OpenStreetMap cleared 600,000 registered contributors. On 6 January 2013, OpenStreetMap reached one million registered users. Around 30% of users have contributed at least one point to the OpenStreetMap database.
Surveys and personal knowledge
Ground surveys are performed by a mapper, on foot, bicycle, or in a car, motorcycle, or boat. Map data was typically recorded on a GPS unit. In late 2006 Yahoo! made their aerial imagery available for tracing to OSM contributors, which simplified mapping of readily visible and identifiable features. The project still makes use of GPS traces from volunteers which are used to delineate the more difficult to identify and classify features such as footpath, as well as providing ground-truth for aerial imagery alignment.
Once the data has been collected, it is entered into the database by uploading it onto the project's website together with appropriate attribute data. As collecting and uploading data may be separated from editing objects, contribution to the project is possible without using a GPS unit.
Some committed contributors adopt the task of mapping whole towns and cities, or organising mapping parties to gather the support of others to complete a map area. A large number of less active users contribute corrections and small additions to the map.
Street-level image data
In addition to several different sets of satellite image backgrounds available to OSM editors, data from several street-level image platforms are available as map data photo overlays: Bing Streetside 360° image tracks, and the open and crowdsourced Mapillary and KartaView platforms, generally smartphone and other windshield-mounted camera images. Additionally, a Mapillary traffic sign data layer can be enabled; it is the product of user-submitted images.
Government data
Some government agencies have released official data on appropriate licences. This includes the United States, where works of the federal government are placed under public domain.
Globally, OSM initially used the Prototype Global Shoreline from NOAA. Due to it being oversimplified and crude, it has been mainly replaced by other government sources or manual tracing.
In the United States, most roads originate from TIGER from the Census Bureau. Geographic names were initially sourced from Geographic Names Information System, and some areas contain water features from the National Hydrography Dataset. In the UK, some Ordnance Survey OpenData is imported. In Canada Natural Resources Canada's CanVec vector data and GeoBase provide landcover and streets.
Out-of-copyright maps can be good sources of information about features that do not change frequently. Copyright periods vary, but in the UK Crown copyright expires after 50 years and hence Ordnance Survey maps until the 1960s can legally be used. A complete set of UK 1 inch/mile maps from the late 1940s and early 1950s has been collected, scanned, and is available online as a resource for contributors.
Route planning
In February 2015, OpenStreetMap added route planning functionality to the map on its official website. The routing uses external services, namely OSRM, GraphHopper and MapQuest.
There are other routing providers and applications listed in the official Routing wiki.
Usage
Software for viewing maps
Web browser
Data provided by the OpenStreetMap project can be viewed in a web browser with JavaScript support via Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) on its official website. The basic map views offered are: Standard, Cycle map, Transport map and Humanitarian. Map display and category options are available using OpenStreetBrowser.
OsmAnd
OsmAnd is free software for Android and iOS mobile devices that can use offline vector data from OSM. It also supports layering OSM vector data with prerendered raster map tiles from OpenStreetMap and other sources.
Locus Map
Locus Map is both free software and premium for Android mobile devices that can use offline vector data from OSM. It also supports layering OSM vector data with prerendered raster map tiles from OpenStreetMap and other sources.
Maps.me
Maps.me is free software for Android and iOS mobile devices that provides offline maps based on OSM data.
Organic Maps
Organic Maps is a mobile map and navigation app with a focus on privacy. It is free software for Android and iOS mobile devices, and provides offline maps based on OSM data.
GNOME Maps
GNOME Maps is a graphical front-end written in JavaScript and introduced in GNOME 3.10. It provides a mechanism to find the user's location with the help of GeoClue, finds directions via GraphHopper and it can deliver a list as answer to queries.
Marble
Marble is a KDE virtual globe application which received support for OpenStreetMap.
FoxtrotGPS
FoxtrotGPS is a GTK+-based map viewer, that is especially suited to touch input. It is available in the SHR or Debian repositories.
The web site OpenStreetMap.org provides a slippy map interface based on the Leaflet JavaScript library (and formerly built on OpenLayers), displaying map tiles rendered by the Mapnik rendering engine, and tiles from other sources including OpenCycleMap.org.
Custom maps can also be generated from OSM data through various software including Jawg Maps, Mapnik, Mapbox Studio, Mapzen's Tangrams.
OpenStreetMap maintains lists of online and offline routing engines available, such as the Open Source Routing Machine. OSM data is popular with routing researchers, and is also available to open-source projects and companies to build routing applications (or for any other purpose).
Humanitarian aid
The 2010 Haiti earthquake has established a model for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to collaborate with international organisations. OpenStreetMap and Crisis Commons volunteers using available satellite imagery to map the roads, buildings and refugee camps of Port-au-Prince in just two days, building "the most complete digital map of Haiti's roads".
The resulting data and maps have been used by several organisations providing relief aid, such as the World Bank, the European Commission Joint Research Centre, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UNOSAT and others.
NGOs, like the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and others, have worked with donors like United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to map other parts of Haiti and parts of many other countries, both to create map data for places that were blank, and to engage and build capacity of local people.
After Haiti, the OpenStreetMap community continued mapping to support humanitarian organisations for various crises and disasters. After the Northern Mali conflict (January 2013), Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (November 2013), and the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa (March 2014), the OpenStreetMap community has shown it can play a significant role in supporting humanitarian organisations.
The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team acts as an interface between the OpenStreetMap community and the humanitarian organisations.
Along with post-disaster work, the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team has worked to build better risk models and grow the local OpenStreetMap communities in multiple countries including Uganda, Senegal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo in partnership with the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières, World Bank, and other humanitarian groups.
Scientific research
OpenStreetMap data was used in scientific studies. For example, road data was used for research of remaining roadless areas and in the creation of the annual Forest Landscape Integrity Index. Another example includes analysis of OpenStreetMap data for determination of spatial development and socio-economic factors in a developing country.
"State of the Map" annual conference
Since 2007, the OSM community has held an annual, international conference called State of the Map.
Venues have been:
(July 4–5). (The event was originally planned to take place in Cape Town, South Africa. It was turned into an online conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
(July 9–11). (Again, the event was held as an online conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event had both a private section with panels and workshops, only accessible to people who had purchased an online ticket, and a public one where most of the talks were made. Additionally, people who had purchased a ticket had the opportunity to ask questions to the speakers and to the sponsors).
(In-person & online).
There are also various national, regional and continental SotM conferences, such as SotM U.S., SotM Baltics, SotM Asia & SotM Africa.
Legal aspects
Licensing terms
OpenStreetMap data was originally published under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence (CC BY-SA) with the intention of promoting free use and redistribution of the data. In September 2012, the licence was changed to the Open Database Licence (ODbL) published by Open Data Commons (ODC) in order to more specifically define its bearing on data rather than representation.
As part of this relicensing process, some of the map data was removed from the public distribution. This included all data contributed by members that did not agree to the new licensing terms, as well as all subsequent edits to those affected objects. It also included any data contributed based on input data that was not compatible with the new terms. Estimates suggested that over 97% of data would be retained globally, but certain regions would be affected more than others, such as in Australia where 24 to 84% of objects would be retained, depending on the type of object. Ultimately, more than 99% of the data was retained, with Australia and Poland being the countries most severely affected by the change.
All data added to the project needs to have a licence compatible with the Open Database Licence. This can include out-of-copyright information, public domain or other licences. Contributors agree to a set of terms which require compatibility with the current licence. This may involve examining licences for government data to establish whether it is compatible.
Software used in the production and presentation of OpenStreetMap data is available from many different projects and each may have its own licensing. The application what users access to edit maps and view changelogs, is powered by Ruby on Rails. The application also uses PostgreSQL for storage of user data and edit metadata. The default map is rendered by Mapnik, stored in PostGIS, and powered by an Apache module called mod_tile. Certain parts of the software, such as the map editor Potlatch2, have been made available as public domain.
Commercial data contributions
Some OpenStreetMap data is supplied by companies that choose to freely license either actual street data or satellite imagery sources from which OSM contributors can trace roads and features.
Notably, Automotive Navigation Data provided a complete road data set for Netherlands and details of trunk roads in China and India. In December 2006, Yahoo! confirmed that OpenStreetMap was able to make use of their vertical aerial imagery and this photography was available within the editing software as an overlay. Contributors could create their vector based maps as a derived work, released with a free and open licence, until the shutdown of the Yahoo! Maps API on 13 September 2011. In November 2010, Microsoft announced that the OpenStreetMap community could use Bing vertical aerial imagery as a backdrop in its editors. For a period from 2009 to 2011, NearMap Pty Ltd made their high-resolution PhotoMaps (of major Australian cities, plus some rural Australian areas) available for deriving OpenStreetMap data under a CC BY-SA licence.
In June 2018, the Microsoft Bing team announced a major contribution of 125 million U.S. building footprints to the project – four times the number contributed by users and government data imports.
Operation
While OpenStreetMap aims to be a central data source, its map rendering and aesthetics are meant to be only one of many options, some of which highlight different elements of the map or emphasise design and performance.
Data format
OpenStreetMap uses a topological data structure, with four core elements (also known as data primitives):
Nodes are points with a geographic position, stored as coordinates (pairs of a latitude and a longitude) according to WGS 84. Outside of their usage in ways, they are used to represent map features without a size, such as points of interest or mountain peaks.
Ways are ordered lists of nodes, representing a polyline, or possibly a polygon if they form a closed loop. They are used both for representing linear features such as streets and rivers, and areas, like forests, parks, parking areas and lakes.
Relations are ordered lists of nodes, ways and relations (together called "members"), where each member can optionally have a "role" (a string). Relations are used for representing the relationship of existing nodes and ways. Examples include turn restrictions on roads, routes that span several existing ways (for instance, a long-distance motorway), and areas with holes.
Tags are key-value pairs (both arbitrary strings). They are used to store metadata about the map objects (such as their type, their name and their physical properties). Tags are not free-standing, but are always attached to an object: to a node, a way or a relation. A recommended ontology of map features (the meaning of tags) is maintained on a wiki. New tagging schemes can always be proposed by a popular vote of a written proposal in OpenStreetMap wiki, however, there is no requirement to follow this process. There are over 89 million different kinds of tags in use as of June 2017.
Data storage
The OSM data primitives are stored and processed in different formats.
The main copy of the OSM data is stored in OSM's main database. The main database is a PostgreSQL database with PostGIS extension, which has one table for each data primitive, with individual objects stored as rows. All edits happen in this database, and all other formats are created from it.
For data transfer, several database dumps are created, which are available for download. The complete dump is called planet.osm. These dumps exist in two formats, one using XML and one using the Protocol Buffer Binary Format (PBF).
Popular services
A variety of popular services incorporate some sort of geolocation or map-based component. Notable services using OSM for this include:
Amazon uses OpenStreetMap for navigation and has a team who revises the map based on feedback from drivers.
Apple Inc. unexpectedly created an OpenStreetMap-based map for iPhoto for iOS on , and launched the maps without properly citing the data source – though this was corrected in 1.0.1. OpenStreetMap is one of the many cited sources for Apple's custom maps in iOS 6, though the majority of map data is provided by TomTom. As of February 2021, Apple was the most prolific corporate editor, responsible for 80% of edits to existing roads.
Petal Maps is a free mobile map application developed by Huawei. From its copyright statement, OpenStreetMap is one of their map data sources.
Craigslist switched to OpenStreetMap in 2012, rendering their own tiles based on the data.
Ballardia (games developer) launched World of the Living Dead: Resurrection in October 2013, which has incorporated OpenStreetMap into its game engine, along with census information to create a browser-based game mapping over 14,000 square kilometres of greater Los Angeles and survival strategy gameplay. Its previous incarnation had used Google Maps, which had proven incapable of supporting high volumes of players, so during 2013 they shut down the Google Maps version and ported the game to OSM.
Facebook uses the map directly in its website/mobile app (depending on the zoom level, the area and the device), with a rendering style designed by Stamen Design as of 2021. Facebook has also used AI technology to detect roads absent from OpenStreetMap but visible in aerial imagery ("mapwith.ai" / "Map with AI"), and has developed an OpenStreetMap editing tool ("RapiD") for adding these roads to OpenStreetMap. The "Daylight Map Distribution" is a snapshot of OpenStreetMap data created by Facebook that claims to be clean of vandalism.
Flickr uses OpenStreetMap data for various cities around the world, including Baghdad, Beijing, Kabul, Santiago, Sydney and Tokyo. In 2012, the maps switched to use Nokia data primarily, with OSM being used in areas where the commercial provider lacked performance.
Foursquare started using OpenStreetMap via Mapbox's rendering and infrastructure of OSM.
Geotab uses OpenStreetMap data in their Vehicle Tracking Software platform, MyGeotab.
Hasbro, the toy company behind the real estate-themed board game Monopoly, launched Monopoly City Streets, a massively multiplayer online game (MMORPG) which allowed players to "buy" streets all over the world. The game used map tiles from Google Maps and the Google Maps API to display the game board, but the underlying street data was obtained from OpenStreetMap. The online game was a limited time offering, its servers were shut down in the end of January 2010.
Komoot, a route planning service for running, cycling and hiking uses OpenStreetMap data
Mapbox, a provider of custom online maps for websites and applications
MapQuest announced a service based on OpenStreetMap in 2010, which eventually became MapQuest Open.
Mapy.cz is based on OpenStreetMap and extends it by allowing users to upload photos, by making web searches by categories like travel tips, restaurant, accommodation, and by featuring 3D views, areal views, historical photos and haptic mode for blind people. It has apps for both Android and iOS with offline maps.
Moovit uses maps based on OpenStreetMap in their free mobile application for public transit navigation.
Niantic switched to OSM based maps from Google Maps on 1 December 2017 for their games Ingress and Pokémon Go.
Nominatim (from the Latin, 'by name') is a tool to search OSM data by name and address (geocoding) and then to generate synthetic addresses of OSM points (reverse geocoding).
OpenTopoMap renders topographic maps based on OSM data and on SRTM data.
Snapchat's June 2017 update introduced its Snap Map with data from Mapbox, OpenStreetMap, and DigitalGlobe.
Strava switched to OpenStreetMap rendered and hosted by Mapbox from Google Maps in July 2015.
Tableau has integrated OSM for all their mapping needs. It has been integrated in all of their products.
TCDD Taşımacılık uses OpenStreetMap as a location map on passenger seats on YHTs.
Tesla Smart Summon feature released widely in US in October 2019 uses OSM data to navigate vehicles in private parking areas autonomously (without a safety driver)
Wahoo uses OpenStreetMap for mapping and giving turn-by-turn navigation in their ELEMNT cycling computers.
Webots uses OpenStreetMap data to create virtual environment for autonomous vehicle simulations.
Gurtam uses OpenStreetMap data in their GPS Tracking Software platform, Wialon.
Wikimedia projects uses OpenStreetMap as a locator map for cities and travel points of interest.
Wikipedia uses OpenStreetMap data to render custom maps used by the articles. Many languages are included in the WIWOSM project (Wikipedia Where in OSM) which aims to show OSM objects on a slippy map, directly visible on the article page.
Sister projects
Several open collaborative mapping projects integrate with the OpenStreetMap database or are otherwise affiliated with the OpenStreetMap project:
OpenHistoricalMap is a world historical map based on the OpenStreetMap software platform.
OpenSeaMap is a world nautical chart built as a mashup of OpenStreetMap, crowdsourced water depth tracks, and third-party weather and bathymetric data.
Wheelmap.org is a portal for mapping, browsing, and reviewing wheelchair-accessible places.
See also
Building information modeling
Collaborative mapping
Comparison of web map services
Counter-mapping
Neogeography
Turn-by-turn navigation
Volunteered geographic information
Other collaborative mapping projects
HERE Map Creator
Google Map Maker
Wikimapia
Yandex.Map editor
Mobile applications
OsmAnd
Karta GPS
MAPS.ME
Street map
References
Further reading
External links
2004 establishments in the United Kingdom
British websites
Internet properties established in 2004
Wikis about geography
Social information processing
Open data
Web mapping
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is a Japanese manga series written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. It was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump for 245 issues published from 1983 to 1988 and initially collected in 27 tankōbon volumes under the Jump Comics imprint. Set on a post-apocalyptic Earth after a nuclear war, the story centers on a warrior named Kenshiro, the successor of a deadly martial art known as Hokuto Shinken, which gives him the ability to kill his opponents by striking their secret vital points, which often results in an exceptionally violent and gory death. Kenshiro dedicates his life to fighting against the various gangs, bandits, and warlords who threaten the lives of the defenseless and innocent, as well as rival martial artists, including his own "brothers" from the same school.
Fist of the North Star was adapted into two anime television series produced by Toei Animation, which together aired on Fuji TV and its affiliates from 1984 through 1988, comprising a combined total of 152 episodes. It has since expanded into a media franchise, including several anime films, a live-action film, OVAs, video games, and a series of spin-offs centering on other characters from the original story. It also has a number of video games and pachinko machines produced by Sega Sammy.
English adaptations of the manga was published by Viz Communications as a monthly comic book, and later by Gutsoon! Entertainment as a series of colorized graphic novels, although neither translation was completed. In October 2020, Viz Media announced that they will publish the title as a series hardcover editions starting in summer 2021. English adaptations of other Fist of the North Star media have been licensed to other companies, including the TV series and the 1986 film.
As of 2018, Fist of the North Star is among the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. The manga has sold over 100 million copies, making it one of the best-selling manga series in history.
Plot
A worldwide nuclear war sometime in the 1990s has resulted in the destruction of most of civilization, turning the world into a desert wasteland. The remnants of mankind fight over whatever supply of food and uncontaminated water still remaining as the strong prey on the weak. Kenshiro is the successor to Hokuto Shinken, an ancient martial art of assassination that trains its practitioners to kill from within an opponent's body through the use of hidden meridian points. Kenshiro wishes to live his life in peace, but after he is separated from his fiancée Yuria by a jealous rival, he begins his journey to become the savior of the post-apocalyptic world, defending the weak and innocent from the many gangs and organizations that threaten their survival. Along the way, Kenshiro meets a young thief named Bat and an orphaned girl named Lin, who join him as his traveling companions and bear witnesses to Ken's many battles.
Kenshiro ends up encountering numerous rival martial artists, including the six grandmasters of Nanto Seiken, a rival assassin's art, as well as his own adoptive brothers who competed with him for the Hokuto Shinken succession. Kenshiro's ultimate nemesis ends up becoming his eldest brother-in-training Raoh, a warrior who broke the law of Hokuto Shinken by killing his master Ryuken and refusing to surrender the succession to Kenshiro. Raoh seeks to conquer the post-apocalyptic world as a warlord under the mantle of Ken-oh, the King of the Fist, by challenging every martial artist he sees as a threat. After a long series of battles, Kenshiro emerges victorious over Raoh and it seems peace has finally come to the post-apocalyptic world, concluding the first half of the story.
The second half begins several years later after a tyrannical empire under the name of the Celestial Empress has risen to power, oppressing anyone who dares to oppose them. Kenshiro comes into action, joining the now-grown Bat and Lin under the banner of the Hokuto Army. As they fight their way into the Empire's capital city, they discover that the Empire has been taken over by the Viceroy Jakoh, a usurper who is keeping the real Celestial Empress captive in his dungeon. The Hokuto Army free the Empress and Jakoh is shortly vanquished afterward.
However, Lin is taken captive by the remnant of Jakoh's forces and is sent off to the mysterious Kingdom of Shura, a brutal land of warriors ruled by three overlords who have all mastered the ways of Hokuto Ryūken, a martial art which branched off from the same clan alongside Hokuto Shinken into the ways of darkness. Kaioh, the head of the three overlords, plans to conquer the post-apocalyptic world in the name of evil by wiping out the followers of Hokuto Shinken. Kenshiro uncovers the sealed testament of the Hokuto Shinken founder, Shuken, which holds the secret to overcoming Kaioh's ultimate technique. Kenshiro emerges victorious over Kaioh and rescues Lin, leaving her under Bat's care. During the final chapters, Kenshiro goes on a journey with Raoh's orphaned son Ryu, in order to lead him on the path to become the next Hokuto Shinken successor, encountering and battling various opponents along the way, before returning to Bat and Lin to protect them from a past enemy.
Production
Tetsuo Hara was a fan of Chinese martial artist and actor Bruce Lee as well as action manga and the Japanese action film actor Yūsaku Matsuda as a teenager in the 1970s. As he did not have a videocassette recorder at the time, he often drew manga versions of Lee and Matsuda from memory. Hara later came up with the idea of Fist of the North Star after being contacted by his editor Nobuhiko Horie, who asked him, "You want to write a manga about Chinese martial arts, right?" According to Hara, Horie suggested to him that he should draw a manga about "a martial artist who destroys his opponents by striking their acupressure points" based on Hara's aspiration to draw a manga about martial arts and his knowledge of pressure points. At the time, Hara was having trouble breaking into the market, as his first serial, The Iron Don Quijote (a manga about motocross racing), was canceled ten weeks after its debut. For the new manga, Hara combined the appearance and character traits of Bruce Lee and Yūsaku Matsuda to create the protagonist, Kenshiro. He also inspired by the Ultraman and Tiger Mask series to create interesting enemy designs.
A prototype version of Fist of the North Star was published as a one shot story in the April 1983 issue of Fresh Jump, which was followed by Fist of the North Star II, a second one-shot published in the June 1983 issue. Both stories were originally collected in the second tankōbon volume of The Iron Don Quijote, Hara's prior serial (although the later 1995 editions moves the first part of the Fist of the North Star pilot on the first volume and only include second part on the second volume).
The two one-shots were well received in the reader's surveys of Fresh Jump and Tetsuo Hara was commissioned to turn Fist of the North Star into a weekly series. Buronson was assigned to work with him as a writer for the serialized version. The storyline was revamped, with the 1980s present-day setting in the original version replaced by a post-apocalyptic future world, and the protagonist Kenshiro, originally a teenager framed for a crime he did not commit in Hara's prototype story, became an older and more stoic hero with a tragic past. For the new setting, Hara drew inspiration from the post-apocalyptic film Mad Max 2 (1981), the cyberpunk film Blade Runner (1982), Katsuhiro Otomo's post-apocalyptic Japanese cyberpunk manga Akira (1982), and the illustrations of artists Syd Mead and Frank Frazetta.
Buronson cited Bruce Lee and Mad Max as his two biggest influences on Fist of the North Star. He stated that Kenshiro and the martial arts were inspired by the martial artist Bruce Lee and his 1970s Hong Kong action kung fu films, while the post-apocalyptic setting was inspired by the Mad Max film series (1979 debut). Fist of the North Star was also influenced by Go Nagai's manga series Violence Jack (1973 debut), which similarly had a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland setting with biker gangs, anarchic violence, ruined buildings, innocent civilians, tribal chiefs and small abandoned villages; it has been argued that Mad Max may have also been influenced by Violence Jack. Originally, Hara and Buronson were contracted to do Fist of the North Star for a three-year run, but due to its popularity and the publisher's demand, it was extended to a five-year run.
Media
Manga
Fist of the North Star, written by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara, premiered in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump on September 13, 1983, and was serialized until August 8, 1988, lasting 245 issues. Its chapters were collected in twenty-seven tankōbon volumes, published under Shueisha's Jump Comics imprint. During the 1990s, Shueisha reprinted the series in a fifteen-volume hardcover aizōban edition from 1991 to 1992, as well as fifteen corresponding economy-sized bunko editions from 1997 to 1998. The Fist of the North Star copyrights would be transferred over to Coamix, a company founded in June 2000 by Nobuhiko Horie after he left Shueisha. A fourteen-volume Kanzenban edition was published by Shogakukan in 2006, under the Big Comics Selection imprint, featuring the original water-colored artwork from the Weekly Shōnen Jump serialization, as well as almost all of the original opening pages that were omitted in earlier editions, although it lacked the added artwork featured in previous collected editions that were drawn to replace ad spaces. To celebrate the series' 30th anniversary, Tokuma Shoten re-published the series in an "Ultimate Edition", comprising eighteen volumes that were published from September 20, 2013 to July 19, 2014. This edition features new cover illustrations by Hara and include an additional chapter in the 11th volume (see below).
English translations
In 1989, Viz Communications published the first sixteen chapters of Fist of the North Star in English as an eight-issue monthly comic. These were later reprinted in a single graphic novel collection in 1995. During the same year, Viz resumed publication of the series as a monthly comic until 1997, lasting eighteen issues (adapting chapters 17–44), divided into three parts. This second run was subsequently republished in three additional graphic novel volumes titled Night of the Jackal, Southern Cross and Blood Brothers. Viz's version featured mirrored artwork with translated sound effects and other retouched details.
In 2002, a second English adaptation was published by Gutsoon! Entertainment under the title of Fist of the North Star: Master Edition, which retained the original right-to-left orientation but featured digitally colored artwork. Each volume from the fourth one and onward featured new cover illustrations by Hara that were made specifically for the Master Edition. The Master Edition ceased publication only a year after its start in 2003, lasting only nine volumes due to Gutsoon!'s withdrawal from the North American market. These colorized editions were translated back to the Japanese market, but only four volumes were published.
In 2020, Viz Media announced a print and digital publication of the manga in hardcover editions, adapted from the 2013 ultimate editions. The first volume was released on June 15, 2021.
Follow-ups and spinoffs
Fist of the Blue Sky (Sōten no Ken), a prequel to Fist of the North Star written by Nobuhiko Horie and drawn by Hara with supervision by Buronson, began publication in the premiere issue of Weekly Comic Bunch (dated May 29, 2001), a manga anthology published by Shinchosha and edited by Coamix. The title ran during the entirety of the magazine's run, initially as a regular feature and later as a semi-regular, until it ceased publication with issue #445 (dated September 10, 2010). During this period various Fist of the North Star spinoffs by different authors were also serialized in the magazine (see Hokuto Gaiden), each focusing on a different character from the original manga. The first of these, Ten no Haoh by Yowkow Osada, began publication in Comic Bunch #231 (cover dated March 24, 2006). It was followed by Sōkoku no Garō by Yasuyuki Nekoi on Comic Bunch #286 (May 11–18, 2007), Shirogane no Seija by Yuka Nagate on Comic Bunch #301 (September 7, 2007), Gokuaku no Hana by Sin-ichi Hiromoto on Comic Bunch #366 (January 16–21, 2009) and Hōkō no Kumo by Missile Kakurai on Comic Bunch #414 (January 22, 2010). Jibo no Hoshi by Akimi Kasai, a spinoff focused on Yuria was also published as a limited series on Big Comic Superior for three issues in 2006, with a second run that lasted six issues in 2007.
In 2014, Buronson and Hara reunited to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the manga by producing a special two-part story for Coamix's subsequent manga anthology Monthly Comic Zenon. Titled Hokuto no Ken: Last Piece, it is set during the timeline gap between Chapters 136 and 137 of the original manga and focuses on Kokuoh, Raoh's former steed who ends up becoming Kenshiro's. The first part was published in the May 2014 issue of Comic Zenon, and the second part in the following issue. It was later included as an extra chapter in Vol. 11 of the Ultimate Edition of the original manga. Other Hokuto no Ken titles published on Comic Zenon include DD Hokuto no Ken by Kajio, which started on the magazine's premiere issue (dated December 2010), Kin'yoku no Garuda, a side-story which started on Comic Zenon #29 (April 2013) and the currently ongoing Sōten no Ken: Regenesis, a sequel to the original Sōten no Ken manga drawn by Hideki Tsuji and written by Hiroyuki Yatsu which began serialization in Comic Zenon #85 (December 2017). Hokuto no Ken: Ichigo Aji written by Yūshi Kawata and illustrated by Yukito the Younger, began serialization in 2013 on Coamix's online manga anthology Web Comic Zenyon.
Dedicated e-reader
In 2018, a dedicated e-reader was sold which shipped with 18 volumes of Fist of the North Star, without the option of loading anything else on to it. It has two screens that fold out like a book and sold for ¥30,000 in Japan. The read-only device is called an eOneBook and is powered by removable AAA batteries.
Anime
TV series
Fist of the North Star was first adapted into an anime television series by Toei Animation. It aired on Fuji Television from October 11, 1984, to March 5, 1987, lasting 109 episodes. It was immediately followed by a sequel series, titled Fist of the North Star 2, which aired from March 13, 1987 to February 18, 1988, lasting for 43 additional episodes (a combined total of 152 episodes between both series).
The full series was never released on VHS in Japan, although three-hour-long compilation movies were produced by Toei Video covering the first, second and fourth story arcs in that order. On July 24, 2002, Universal Music released a Region 2 DVD box set containing all 152 episodes spread across 26 discs. These discs were later released as individual volumes from May 21, 2003 through January 21, 2004. Three "best of" DVD compilations were also released in 2005, each featuring seven key episodes from the series. On March 28, 2008, Avex released a 25th-anniversary edition box set featuring new video transfers of all 152 episodes remastered in high definition, once again spread across 26 discs. This set also features two additional discs of bonus content (including the aforementioned compilation movies).
This show aired with English subtitles on Nippon Golden Network in the late 1980s. The first 36 episodes of the first series were translated and dubbed by Manga Entertainment in 1999, although only 24 episodes were released on VHS (spread across eight tapes). All 36 episodes of the dub version were aired on Showtime Beyond in the United States and on Sci-Fi Channel in the United Kingdom, and were later released on DVD in 2003 (spread across six individual volumes). In 2008, the US subsidiary of Toei Animation produced an official subtitle-only translation of all 152 episodes, which were released on various paid download and streaming websites available only for North American customers. Discotek Media announced on October 2, 2009 that they have licensed the entire Fist of the North Star TV series. The first two boxsets were released in that year, and the latter two in 2011. The episodes use the same transfers from the 2008 DVD box set in Japan, although it did not contain any of the special features. The first set featured the first 36 episodes along with Manga Entertainment's English dub, and a Japanese audio option with English subtitles; these subtitles were adjusted from the translation of Toei's streaming episodes. Discotek later released all discs from all four boxsets (a total of 21 discs) together in one set, Fist of the North Star: The Series - The Complete Series Collection, on March 25, 2014. Discotek released the complete series as a standard definition Blu-ray set on October 31, 2017.
In 2009, William Winckler Productions produced six compilation movies voiced in English. The movies cover major story arcs from the TV series, each one centering on a specific character (Shin, Rei, Toki, Souzer, Raoh, and Kaioh). These compilation movies had not been officially released in North America and Europe yet but were distributed to video streaming websites in Japan in 2012.
Films and OVAs
The first animated feature film based on the series, simply titled Fist of the North Star, was produced by Toei Animation, which premiered in Japan on March 8, 1986. Produced by the same staff and cast who worked on the TV series, the movie adapts the storyline of the manga from the beginning and up to Kenshiro's first fight with Raoh, taking several liberties with the order of events and how the story unfolds. An English-dubbed version produced by Streamline Pictures was first released in 1991 in North America and in 1994 in Europe and Australia by Manga Entertainment.
In 2003, a three-episode original video animation (OVA) mini-series titled New Fist of the North Star was produced by OB Planning, based on a 1996 Fist of the North Star novel, Jubaku no Machi. An English dub version was produced by ADV Films in 2004.
In 2005, North Stars Pictures and TMS Entertainment announced the development of a five-part film series titled Fist of the North Star: The Legends of the True Savior. The series is composed of three theatrical films and two OVAs, which were released during a three-year period between 2006 throughout 2008, culminating with the 25th anniversary of the franchise.
At the Japanese box office, Fist of the North Star (1986) grossed and Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Death in Love (2006) grossed , for a combined (). Chapter of Death in Love also grossed $1,258,568 overseas, and Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Fierce Fight (2007) grossed $1,479,911 in Japan, bringing the films' total worldwide box office gross to .
Novels
An original novel was written by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara titled Shōsetsu Hokuto no Ken: Jubaku no Machi which was published by Jump Novel in Japan on December 13, 1996. The novel was the basis of the later three-episode OVA series New Fist of the North Star. A novelization of the movie Legend of Raoh: Chapter of Love in Death written by Eiichi Sakaki was published by Tokuma Novels on March 10, 2006.
There have also been two cell phone novels released via the mobile site Hokuto no Ken DX. Raoh Gaiden, a novelization of the manga of the same name, and Kenshiro Gaiden, an original novel by Jotaro Higashi.
Live-action film
An American-produced live-action movie version of Fist of the North Star was released in 1995, directed by Tony Randel based on a script by Peter Atkins and Wynne McLaughlin. The movie, loosely based on the Shin storyline of the manga, stars Gary Daniels as Kenshiro, Costas Mandylor as Shin and Japanese actress Isako Washio as Yuria, with Malcolm McDowell as Ryuken and Chris Penn as "Jackal" (actually a renamed Jagi). It also featured a cameo by professional wrestler Big Van Vader as Goliath, and Kevin Arbouet as "Rao" (unrelated to the actual Raoh from the manga). The movie was released straight-to-video in the United States and Japan (though it did receive a premiere on HBO). The Japanese dubbed version used the original voice actors from the 1980s anime series.
Video games
Numerous video game titles based on the Fist of the North Star have been produced since the 1986 release of the Enix adventure game, simply titled Hokuto no Ken for the PC-88. The earlier games in the franchise were released by Sega for the Mark III and Mega Drive and by Toei Animation for Nintendo's Famicom, Game Boy and Super Famicom. These titles included side-scrolling action games, role-playing video games and competitive-style fighting games. The two Sega titles were stripped of the license and rebranded for the international market under the titles of Black Belt for the Master System and Last Battle for the Sega Genesis. Two Toei titles, namely Fist of the North Star (a localized version of the Famicom's Hokuto no Ken 2) for the NES released by Taxan Soft in 1989 and Fist of the North Star: 10 Big Brawls for the King of Universe for the Game Boy released by Electro Brain in 1991, had American releases with the license intact.
Further games were released for the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS, among other platforms. In 2000, Konami released an arcade game based on the franchise titled Fighting Mania. Another arcade game, a 2D fighting game simply titled Fist of the North Star, was produced by Sega and Arc System Works in 2005. Both of these games saw international distributions, although the PS2 version of the fighting game was released exclusively in Japan. Tecmo Koei produced a Dynasty Warriors spin-off focusing on the events from the first half of the manga, titled Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage, for the PlayStation 3. It which was released in Japan, North America, and Europe in 2010. A sequel, Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage 2, expanded on the first game and incorporated the events from the second half of the manga. It was released in Japan in 2012 and in North America in 2013. Sega's new game, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise was released for the PlayStation 4 in 2018. It was developed by the team behind the Yakuza series, featuring similar gameplay and elements, though rather than adapting the story of the manga, it is an original story with no continuity with events in the manga, though it does feature characters from the manga, voiced by actors from the Yakuza series.
Reception and legacy
Fist of the North Star was one of Weekly Shōnen Jump'''s most popular titles during the 1980s. It is one of the best-selling manga series in history, having sold approximately 100 million copies. In a poll conducted by TV Asahi in 2005, the Fist of the North Star anime series ranked 26 in a list of Top 100 Anime series. In a second poll in 2006, it ranked 89. In a celebrity version of the poll, it ranked 15. In November 2014, readers of Media Factory's Da Vinci magazine voted Fist of the North Star number 8 on a list of Weekly Shōnen Jumps greatest manga series of all time. On TV Asahi's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150,000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, Fist of the North Star ranked 22nd.
As of 2018, Fist of the North Star is one of the top twenty highest-grossing media franchises of all time, estimated to have generated more than in total franchise revenue.
ImpactFist of the North Star is considered one of the most influential shōnen manga series of all time. Geek.com calls it "an epochal, generation-defining work that introduced madcap ultraviolence to the page and inspired tons of other mangaka." Berserk creator Kentaro Miura has named Fist of the North Star as the work that has had the biggest impact on his own.
It also had an influence on video games. Technōs Japan game designer Yoshihisa Kishimoto cited it as an influence on the setting and art style of arcade beat 'em up game Double Dragon (1987), which had a disaster-ridden city inspired by both Mad Max and Fist of the North Star. It has also been credited with originating the fatality finishing move concept which later appeared in the Mortal Kombat series of fighting games.
Internet memes
In the 2010s, Kenshiro's catchphrase "Omae Wa Mou Shindeiru" ("You Are Already Dead") became one of the most popular anime-based Internet memes. In September 2017, music producer deadman 死人 (Noah Ryan Murphy) released the song "Omae Wa Mou" which references the meme and samples the Japanese song "Tiny Little Adiantum" (2013) from the Touhou Project video game music album Toho Bossa Nova 2. The rapper Lil Boom produced his own version of the song called "Already Dead" three months later. In 2019, "Omae Wa Mou" went viral on TikTok and topped Spotify's Viral 50 chart, before being taken off the chart after being struck with a copyright claim.
Pachinko
A number of pachinko and pachislot machines based on the franchise have been produced, mainly by Sega Sammy Holdings since the launch of the CR Hokuto No Ken pachinko machine in 2002. Pachislot Hokuto No Ken, launched in 2004, sold 620,000 units by March 2005, becoming the best-selling pachislot machine. Pachinko CR Hokuto No Ken 3 became Sega Sammy's best-selling pachinko machine when it launched in 2009. By March 2017, Sega Sammy had sold 3.18million Hokuto no Ken pachinko, pachislot and arcade machines, including 2.71million Hokuto no Ken pachinko and pachislot machines, 30,000 Hokuto no Ken arcade game machines, and 440,000 Souten no Ken pachinko and pachislot machines. These pachinko machines can be seen and played in the Yakuza video game series.
See also
Bruceploitation
Dragon Ball, a 1984 martial-arts manga and anime franchise
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure'', a 1986 shōnen manga and anime franchise
Explanatory notes
Citations
General bibliography
External links
Shin Kyuseishu Densetsu - Hokuto no Ken official website
Toei Animation's official Seikimatsu Kyūseishu Densetsu: Hokuto no Ken website
Fist of the North Star
1983 manga
1984 anime television series debuts
1987 anime television series debuts
ADV Films
Adventure anime and manga
Anime series based on manga
Bruceploitation
Discotek Media
Fiction set in the 1990s
Fuji TV original programming
Funimation
Manga adapted into films
Martial arts anime and manga
Post-apocalyptic anime and manga
Sega Sammy Holdings
Shōnen manga
Shueisha franchises
Shueisha manga
Toei Animation television
Viz Media manga
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Water supply and sanitation in Burkina Faso are characterized by high access to water supply in urban areas, while access to an at least basic water sources in rural areas – where three quarters of the population live – remains relatively low. An estimated one third of water facilities in rural areas are out of service because of a lack of maintenance. Access to at least basic sanitation lags significantly behind access to water supply.
The government and donor agencies alike consider urban water supply in Burkina Faso one of the rare development success stories in Sub-Saharan Africa. Access to an improved water source in urban areas increased from 73% in 1990 to 95% in 2008. Water supply that used to be intermittent now is continuous. The national utility Office National de l'Eau et de l'Assainissement (ONEA) was insolvent twenty years ago and provided poor service to a small number of customers. As of 2010, it has grown substantially and is financially healthy. The World Bank and USAID today consider the public company one of the best performing water utilities in Sub-Saharan Africa. Increasing cost recovery and improving the efficiency of service provision have been important elements in the turnaround of the utility. In the late 1990s, the World Bank had insisted that the private sector should play a significant role in providing water services in Burkina Faso. The government rejected this approach. Instead, it pragmatically integrated certain principles of market-oriented sector reforms into its own policies in order to further increase the performance of the public utility.
In rural areas, a 2004 decentralization law has given responsibility for water supply to the country's 301 municipalities (communes) which have no track record in providing or contracting out these services. Implementation of the decentralization has been slow. Municipalities, whose capacities are being strengthened, are contracting out service provision to local private companies, or in some cases to ONEA.
The government has adopted a National Sanitation Strategy in 2008 and President Blaise Compaoré launched a campaign in 2010 to boost the implementation of the strategy.
Access
Methodologies and data sources. The Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) of WHO and UNICEF, which is the internationally accepted source for the measurement to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water supply and sanitation, relies on the compilation of various surveys (Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Cluster Indicators Surveys (MCIS)) to establish access rates. These surveys typically assess the availability of infrastructure, not service quality. The 2017 estimates for Burkina Faso thus indicate access rates to an at least basic water source of 79 percent in urban areas and 43 percent in rural areas. The Government relies on an entirely different approach, based on the concept of "reasonable access". This concept differs from the JMP approach by taking into account aspects of service quality, such as waiting time and water quality. According to the government approach, the water access rates in 2005 were lower than under the JMP approach, standing at 74 percent in urban areas and 60 percent in rural areas. While the “reasonable access” approach is more sophisticated, it also faces greater challenges in terms of availability of data.
Water supply. In 2015, 54% of the population had access to "at least basic" water, 79% and 43%, in urban and rural areas respectively. Still, in 2015, around 8 million lacked access to "at least basic" water.
According to JMP estimates access to an at least basic water source in urban areas only increased from 75% in 2000 to 79% in 2015. In rural areas access increased from 41% in 2000 to 43% in 2015. The increase of access to water supply in urban areas was facilitated by the introduction of a social connection program that reduced connection fees in 2005 (see below under tariffs). However, some of the newly installed connections are not used, either because the connected compound was still waiting for actual occupancy or because households were unable to pay the monthly water bills because their income was either too low or too irregular. The share of “inactive connections” was 20% in Bobo Diolassou and 7% in Ouagadougou.
Sanitation. In 2015, 23% of the population had access to "at least" sanitation, 48% and 12%, in urban and rural areas respectively. Still, in 2015, around 13 million lacked access to "at least basic" sanitation.
Sanitation in Burkina Faso is mostly in the form of on-site sanitation, including latrines for defecation and soakaway pits for greywater from showers and washing facilities. Compared to the significant increase in access to water supply, access to adequate sanitation increased only slightly between 2000 and 2015 from 75% to 79% in urban areas and from 2% to 12% in rural areas. Open defecation remains widespread, estimated at 48% of the population. Those who have neither access to adequate sanitation nor defecate in the open use shared or unimproved latrines. These are not considered adequate sanitation facilities by the WHO. Burkina Faso fully subsidizes the capital costs for latrines in rural areas. Despite this effort, between 2000 and 2008 the number of people defecating in the open in rural areas increased.
ONEA has substantially invested in sanitation by helping households to build such shower and washing facilities connected to soakaway pits, as well as improved latrines. ONEA subsidizes these facilities with the support of international donors and with the cash generated by the sanitation surcharge on water bills. The grants provided by ONEA amount on average to 40 percent of the cost of facilities, thus making them affordable to households. Sewerage plays a marginal role in Burkina Faso. There are only 235 connections to sewers in the entire country, all in Ouagadougou.
Service quality
In urban areas, water supply is mostly continuous. In Ouagadougou this constitutes a significant improvement from the times before the construction of the Ziga dam and the efficiency improvements of the national water utility when supply was intermittent.
In rural areas, most residents fetch water from open wells or hand pumps. As in other African countries, the sustainability of hand pumps and other water supply systems is an issue. There are conflicting data about the share of water systems in rural areas that are out of service in Burkina Faso. According to data quoted by UNICEF, 23% of pumps in rural areas are out of service because of a lack of maintenance. According to data quoted by the World Bank, of the more than 50,000 water points in rural areas 33,000 (8,000 “modern wells” and 25,000 boreholes equipped with handpumps) are functioning, i.e. more than one third of wells are out of service. Of 570 small piped systems in rural areas, 400 are functioning, i.e. also almost one third are not functioning.
Water resources, water use and infrastructure
National overview of water resources. Water resources are scarce in Burkina Faso. Water availability varies greatly between regions and seasons, as well as from year to year. In the South, average rainfall is as high as 1,200mm during a six-month wet season, while in the North the wet season lasts only three months and rainfall is only 300mm. The only rivers in the country that carry water all year around are the Mouhoun River (Black Volta) and the Nakambe River (White Volta), the other rivers carrying water only during the wet season. Building dams has been the most common way of storing water for the dry season, even though evaporation can reach 2,000 mm/year thus causing substantial water losses from open reservoirs. A substantial portion of surface water resources is shared with neighboring countries. For example, the Nakambe River - the main source of supply for the capital, Ouagadougou - and the Mouhoun River are shared with Ghana. Surface water resources vary between 8 billion cubic meters (BCM)/year in an average year and 4 BCM in a dry year. The lower figure corresponds to less than 300 cubic meters per capita and year, which is well below the level of 1,000 cubic meters per capita and year that is considered the threshold for “water stress”.
Groundwater is unevenly distributed and can only be extracted in certain areas, specifically in weathered areas above the bedrock and fractured zones. Even there yields are limited to about 10 m3/day per borehole, which is barely enough to supply a small village with water.
Water use. Water use in 2000 was 0.7 BCM or less than 10% of surface water resources in an average year and less than 20% in a dry year. Only about 0.1 BCM, or slightly more than 1% of total water resources, are used for domestic water supply. Irrigation and livestock watering are the main water uses.
Ouagadougou water supply infrastructure. With its more than 1.2 million inhabitants the capital Ouagadougou is by far the largest city in Burkina Faso. It is supplied mostly by surface water from five reservoirs:
The "hill dams" Ouaga 1, 2 and 3 located within the city and forming Lake Ouagadougou,
the Lumbila reservoir (36 million m3 storage) on the Massili river, about 10 km away and completed in 1947, and
the Ziga reservoir (200 million m3 storage) which is about 50 km away and that started providing water to the capital in 2004, supplying about 70% of its needs in 2008.
The catchment area of the "hill dams" is today completely built up with settlements that have inadequate sanitation systems. Furthermore, rubbish is washed into the reservoirs during the rainy season. Furthermore, over the years, the hill dam reservoirs and the Lumbila reservoir have been gradually filled with mud and sediment. Water from the hill dams and the Lumbila reservoir is treated in the Paspanga water treatment plant, which supplied about 20-25% of the water needs of the city in 2008. Groundwater provides for about 5-10% of the water needs of the city.
Ouagadougou sanitation infrastructure. Most of the population of Ouagadougou uses latrines. Only about 5% use septic tanks and an even smaller proportion is connected to a 43 km-sewer network completed in 2006 in the city center and that serves mainly commercial, industrial and institutional clients. The network discharges to a 20-ha stabilization pond in the Kossodo industrial area, which also treats sludge from septic tanks brought in by tankers.
History and recent events
Creation of a national water utility (1977-1990)
Until 1977 water services were provided by a private operator, which focused on a few rich neighborhoods of the capital, Ouagadougou. Its contract was terminated in 1977. In the same year the national water company ONE, whose name was changed to Office National de l’Eau et de l’Assainissement (ONEA) in 1985, took over responsibility for urban water supply in the country. During its first years of existence, which were marked by a period of political instability, the utility achieved little in terms of expanding access and improving service quality.
Strengthening of the national water company ONEA during the 1990s
In the early 1990s the government initiated a process of restructuring and strengthening the national water utility ONEA, while investing heavily in expanding access with the assistance of foreign aid. Through this process the utility was transformed into one of the most successful and efficient water companies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Improving cost recovery was an important element of this process: Tariffs were increased by 30% to almost €1 per cubic meter, so that ONEA enjoyed a healthy financial situation and reported an accounting profit. Increasing efficiency was another important element: Nonrevenue water declined to 16 percent, an excellent level by regional standards. Labor productivity was increased by reducing the number of employees from 670 in 1991 to 570 in 1995 while the number of customers increased substantially. Furthermore, business procedures were modernized through a computerized customer billing system, customer relations were improved, an internal control system to fight corruption was introduced and a laboratory was established. The mutual responsibilities of the public company and the government were laid out in the form of a Contrat Plan setting quantitative targets over a number of years, as it is common for state-owned enterprises in many Francophone countries.
Despite these successes of the public company, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank insisted about establishing a public-private partnership for water supply in Burkina Faso during the late 1990s. A 10-year lease contract with a private French company signed previously in Senegal was cited as one positive example. Nevertheless, the government rejected the option of a lease contract, which was considered too far-reaching without completely rejecting all the elements of the sector reforms initiated in some of the neighboring West African countries. The government thus adopted only those aspects that it considered a good fit for the conditions of Burkina Faso. In that vein the government initiated sector reforms in 2001 to achieve what it called “a genuine public-public partnership between the Government and ONEA.”
An important element of the urban sector reform was that the government refrained from political interference and established tools to objectively and independently monitor the performance of ONEA. In the crucial field of cost recovery, a financial model of ONEA was developed in a participatory manner and applied, allowing the government to assess progress towards financial equilibrium of ONEA and providing an objective basis for further tariff revision requests. The government then approved requests for tariff increases submitted by the utility and justified by the outcome of the model's calculations in a timely fashion, which was crucial to maintain the utility in good financial health. The Government also helped to strengthen the utility by not interfering with investment and staffing decisions and paying its water bills on time.
Another element of the reform was that, unlike previously and unlike in many other countries with public-public performance contracts, the existing three-year Contrats Plans between the Government and ONEA were now subjected to periodic independent assessments.
Private sector support to further strengthen the public utility (2001-2006)
Another element of the urban sector reform was the decision to improve commercial practices of ONEA through a short-term performance-based service contract with a private company. The international bid for this five-year service contract was won by the French private operator Veolia in January 2001, two months before the World Bank's announcement of a new US$70 million credit for water supply in Ouagadougou. The contract covered the management of customer service and bill collections on behalf of ONEA, but kept the technical operation of the system and the supervision of the contract in the hands of the public utility. The expatriates worked as deputies to local managers and the international operator had mostly an advisory role. Yet because of the performance-based nature of the contract, it also had a clear financial stake in the success of the technical assistance provided. According to a World Bank study, “the staff sent by the international operator proved to be seasoned professionals with many years of hands-on operational experience.” With their help ONEA's commercial performance further improved, although this took some time. The collection ratio decreased during the first two years and improved only afterward, slightly increasing beyond the pre contract performance in year three, reaching 93 percent in year four and 95 percent in year five. In December 2008 ONEA became the first public water utility in Sub-Saharan Africa to be IS0 9001-certified. The World Bank today considers ONEA “a mature corporation, similar in all respects to a private corporation.”
Expansion of access and the Ziga dam (2000s)
In July 2004 the President of Burkina Faso inaugurated the treatment plant and pipeline that provided water from the new Ziga dam and allowed ONEA to limit water rationing in Ouagadougou. The dam and associated investments allowed a significant increase in water connections in Ouagadougou, with the number of house connections more than tripling between 2001 and 2007.
Decentralization in rural areas since 2004
Concerning rural water supply, in 2004 the government established a policy of decentralization, foreseeing to transfer the responsibility for operating and maintaining rural water systems from the state to local communities. Implementation has initially been slow, but picked up over time. In March 2009 a decree transferred the ownership of piped systems in small towns outside the ONEA service area to municipalities, which in turn contract out operation and maintenance to local private operators or to ONEA. According to the World Bank, before decentralization the development of rural services suffered from an overly centralized planning and investment process, which bypassed local governments. Rural water supply was, and to some extent still is, characterized by a diversity of project rules, implementation approaches, and technical options that are left to the discretion of financing agencies and NGOs.
Responsibilities for water supply and sanitation
Policy and regulation
Government policies for water supply and sanitation are codified in two main laws and in a number of national plans and strategies for specific sub-sectors. The two main laws are the 2001 Water Management Act, which formulates principles for the integrated management of water resources and for the development of the various water uses, and the 2004 Decentralization Law (Charge Générale des Collectivités Territoriales, CGCT), which sets the responsibilities for the delivery of basic services, including water supply and sanitation.
Concerning national plans and strategies, in the field of integrated water resources management Burkina Faso adopted an action plan (Plan d’Action pour la Gestion Intégrale des Ressources en Eau, PAGIRE) in 2003 which emphasized gradual decentralization, in the same vein as the decentralization law.
In 2006 the government adopted a National Water Supply and Sanitation Program (PN-AEPA) to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. In 2008 the government also adopted a Rural Water Supply Maintenance Reform Paper. Also in 2008 the government adopted an updated Sanitation Strategy. To support the strategy, the President of Burkina Faso launched a national campaign to increase access to adequate sanitation in June 2010.
Within the government, the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Fisheries is responsible for setting national policies for water supply. Within the Ministry the General Directorate for Water Resources (Direction Générale des Ressources en Eau, DGRE) is responsible for water resources management and the General Directorate of Drinking Water Supply (Direction Générale de l’Approvisionnement en Eau Potable, DGAEP) is in charge of drinking water supply.
Service provision
Urban areas. Burkina Faso's urban water and sanitation service provider is the national utility Office National de l’Eau et de l’Assainissement (ONEA). According to the World Bank and USAID, ONEA has an excellent record of performance in West Africa. It serves 43 cities and towns throughout the country. ONEA's and the government's mutual responsibilities are laid out in three-year performance contracts (contracts plans) with explicit operational targets. A board of directors is responsible for the supervision of ONEA's performance and for all strategic decisions. It has the authority to appoint (and fire) the general manager and determine employees’ pay scales, while a general manager makes day-to-day operational decisions. The utility is allowed to cut off service for nonpayment of water bills, and its workers are subject to private sector (not civil service) rules.
The urban centers served by ONEA have an estimated population of 3.3 million people in 2008, about one quarter of the country's population. The two largest cities, Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso, account for 64 percent of the total population served by the utility. A sanitation department (Direction de l'assainissement, DASS) is specifically responsible for urban sanitation.
Rural areas. In rural areas and small towns outside the service area of ONEA, where about three quarters of the population live, community service providers (Associations d'usagers de l'eau) have relied upon support from international donors and local and international non-governmental organizations (NGO). The decentralization process initiated in 2004 led to a transfer of the responsibility for water supply and sanitation to the municipalities (communes) in 2009, but confirmed the mandate of ONEA to deliver urban and sanitation services within its existing service area. As mentioned above, the municipalities are not expected to deliver services themselves, but rather to delegate the delivery to public entities such as ONEA or local private companies. In some regions community service providers have associated themselves at the regional level. One example is the Fédération des usagers de l'eau de la région de Bobo-Dioulasso (Faureb). The members of the federation set a unique water tariff for the 40 small towns and villages in their region. They also administer funds for maintenance, renewal and new investments through the Federation's management center (Centre de gestion). This mechanisms also allows for cross-subsidies between the different small towns and villages in the Federation.
Water resources management
At the local level, water committees (Comités Locaux de l'Eau, CLE) are in the process to be established to carry out Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). As a first step the committees are expected to elaborate water management plans (Schemas Directeurs de la Gestion de l’Eau, SAGE).
Other responsibilities
There is also a water and sanitation NGO network and a water and sanitation journalists network.
Efficiency
Concerning ONEA, at 18% non-revenue water is one of the lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Labor productivity is average with 4.3 employees per 1,000 connections, calculated based on 775 employees and 182,000 connections in 2010.
Financial aspects
Investments. In 2007, the estimated cost to meet the MDG goals for access to improved drinking water and sanitation facilities required an annual investment of $78 million for water and $28 million for sanitation. By comparison, the 2007 public budget for WSS sector improvements amounted to only $13.3 million for water and $4 million for sanitation. According to the PN-AEPA, to achieve its goals, total financing of US324 million ($43 million per year) is required between 2007 and 2015 in urban areas and US$810 million (US$101m per year) in rural areas. There are sufficient donor commitments to achieve the goals in urban areas, while there is a funding gap in rural areas.
Tariffs. Tariffs are identical for the entire service area of ONEA, with the objective of cross subsidies between localities. The ONEA water tariffs are among the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa, reaching on average CFA franc 440/m3 (US$0.87/m3). The tariff structure is based on an increasing block rate system, with a social block including a basic consumption of 8 cubic meter per household and month at CFAF 209/m3 (US$0.41/m3) including the sanitation surcharge. However, taking into account the fixed monthly fee of CFAF 1,000 (US$2), a household consuming 6 m3 per month actually pays the equivalent of CFAF 375/m3 (US$0.75/m3). Commercial users, public buildings and residential users with a consumption of more than 30m3/month pay CFAF 1,040 per m3 (US$2.05/m3). Consumers using standpipes should pay CFAF 5 (US$0.01) for a 20-liter bucket, CFAF 10 (US$0.02) for a 40-liter bucket and CFAF 60 (US$0.12) for a 220-liter barrel. The price per bucket corresponds to CFAF 250/m3 (US$0.50/m3). However, this official rate is not well enforced and in practice users pay between CFAF 350 and 600/m3 (US$0.75/m3 – US$1.20/m3). Standpipe caretakers pay CFAF 188/m3 (US$0.37/m3) to the utility and earn a living based on the margin they charge. Consumers using vendors pay much higher rates, around CFAF 1,000–1,500/m3 (US$2–3/m3). Under a social connection program, connection fees charged by the national utility for household connections, which were set at CFAF 120,000 (US$240) in 2005, corresponding to the full cost of establishing the connection, were first reduced to CFAF 50,000 (US$lOO) and then to CFAF 30,000 (US$60).
Tariffs in rural areas, where they exist, are set at the local level and differ from one locality to the other. In the Hauts-Bassins Region and Cascades Region, a Federation of water user groups has set the tariff in rural areas at CFAF 500/m3 (US$1/m3). 40% of this amount is supposed to be used for operating costs at the village level and 60% is paid into funds for maintenance, renewal and new investments as well as for a support unit at the regional level. The water tariff for rural areas in this part of the country thus is higher than the national urban water tariff for residential users charged by ONEA.
Affordability. According to a water tariff study by ICEN and Sogreah carried out in 2007 the average ONEA residential water bill was 4,400 CFAF (US$8.80) per month for a household connection using 45 liter per capita and day, corresponding to about 4% of household income. It was estimated that households that fetched water from standpipes paid 2,600 CFAF (US$5.20) or 3% of their income to receive 28 liter per capita and day.
External cooperation
A joint aid strategy for Burkina Faso is expected in 2009 following in the footsteps of a "Plan d'Action National de l'Efficacité de l'Aide" (PANEA). Among the main external partners in the water and sanitation sector in Burkina Faso are the African Development Bank, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, Denmark, the Kuwait Fund for Arab and Economic Development, the European Investment Bank, the European Union, France, Germany, the Islamic Development Bank, the OPEC Fund for International Development, the West African Development Bank and the World Bank. The donors increasingly finance projects together in the spirit of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, thus reducing the fragmentation of external cooperation. In addition to public donor agencies, many NGOs are active in water and sanitation in Burkina Faso.
Public partners
Projects jointly funded by multiple donors. The US$270m Ouagadougou Water Supply Project (2001–2007), which secured the water supply of the capital through the Ziga dam and associated infrastructure, was supported by 11 donors convened by the World Bank.
Germany. German development cooperation supports water and sanitation projects and programs implemented by ONEA as well as the decentralized directorates of the ministries and regional authorities. It supported the improvement and expansion of the water supply of Bobo-Dioulasso as well as the collection and treatment of industrial and household sewage in the same city.
Together with 13 other donors, Germany was also involved in the construction of the Ziga dam which ensures a continuous water supply for the population of Ouagadougou and the population living around the reservoir. Another German project promotes water supply in Fada N’Gourma. German cooperation also supports the construction and rehabilitation of tube wells in rural areas in the Boucle du Mouhoun province and in five provinces of the Eastern Region. Germany also supports the provision of water supply and sanitation for households, schools and hospitals in small and medium towns in the country's southwest.
UNICEF. UNICEF is particularly active in school water supply and sanitation, as well as in hygiene education through schools. It has helped to provide schools with 170 wells and rehabilitate 50 water pumps. This has contributed to reducing the prevalence of guinea worm infection from 1,956 cases in 2000 to 30 cases in 2005 and also to increasing water access in schools from 39% to 82% over the same period. Sanitation and hygiene education was intensified, using primary schools as an entry point: 139 schools were equipped with special latrines, teacher and students were trained in hygiene education, and children participated in activities targeting behavior change in families.
Non-governmental organizations
WaterAid. Following a pilot project that began in 2001, WaterAid began developing partnerships and programmes in the rural Garango, Ramongo and Bokin districts. In 2003 work extended to include Bogodogo and Sigh-Noghin districts in Ouagadougou. WaterAid now works with seven partner organisations. According to its website, it helped over 32,000 people gain access to clean water and started a credit scheme for sanitation and soap-making enterprises with women.
Initiative: Eau. Initiative: Eau is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization dedicated to increasing the safety and quality of drinking water services in developing areas and crisis zones. The organization has its West Africa regional office in Fada N'gourma and currently operates in the East, Center East, and Sahel regions of Burkina, engaging in water infrastructure and quality surveillance. Through its research initiatives, it has monitored water quality for over 15 000 individuals and works strategically with the government and public water utility to inform decision-making.
See also
Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA)
Water supply and sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa
References
External links
Office National de l'Eau et de l'Assainissement
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Kurrowah is a heritage-listed mansion at 218 Gladstone Road, Dutton Park, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Lange Leopold Powell and built from 1915 to 1916. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 13 June 2014.
History
Kurrowah, a rendered masonry, timber and tile residence on Gladstone Road, Dutton Park, in Brisbane, was designed by Lange Leopold Powell and constructed in 1915–1916. It is a rare and intact example of the residential work of this noted Queensland architect. This attractive house with a beautifully designed and crafted interior is set on high ground, giving it views to the west and south.
The area now known as Dutton Park developed slowly. Initially it was thickly timbered, deeply gullied land. From the 1840s farms were established near the river. Early land owners included Edward Deighton (Under-Secretary, Department of Public Works and Mines 1877–8) whose house "Wahcumba" was situated on a large estate off Gladstone Road. By 1883 there were about ten residences along Gladstone Road, most on the ridge overlooking the river and on large allotments. Dutton Park railway station opened in 1884. Subdivision of land from large land holdings, such as the Deighton Estate (between Boggo Road, now Annerley Road, and James Street, now Lochaber Street), followed during Brisbane's 1880s land boom. The first horse-drawn bus service linking Dutton Park with the city commenced in 1890 and was replaced by electric tram along Gladstone Road by 1908. This stimulated rapid development of the area and almost doubled land values. In 1914 the suburb was named in honour of Charles Dutton, Secretary of Public Lands between 1883 and 1887, and by the 1920s the area was considered fashionable.
The land on which Kurrowah stands was sold to Edward Deighton . The eastern portion of his estate adjoining Annerley Road was subdivided during the 1880s, as the Deighton Estate. Three larger blocks (totalling were also created. A new certificate for this land, which included the site of the future Kurrowah, was issued to Abraham Fleetwood Luya (timber merchant, South Brisbane Alderman and later South Brisbane Mayor and Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly for South Brisbane) in 1888 and a house was built on the site, in which Luya was resident by 1889. He sold the property in 1894 to Anna Magdalena Heinecke, wife of Frederick W Heinecke (manager of the nearby Virginia Tobacco factory), who was listed by the Queensland Post Office Directory as living at "Linden" on Gladstone Road, between Gloucester and James Streets, by 1896.
During the 1880s Brisbane had grown spectacularly. The population more than doubled to over 90,000 in 1891, primarily due to immigration. This stimulated building activity, municipal organisation, provision of amenities and services, and cultural and leisure outlets. The number of inhabited dwellings almost doubled between 1881 and 1891, from 5,814 to 10,321. Aided by the requirement of the Undue Subdivision of Land Prevention Act 1885, which enforced a minimum allotment size, this population increase caused Brisbane to overshoot its boundaries, growing along the lines of transport (railway, road, tram and omnibus routes which were dictated by the hilly topography of the area) until the town coalesced with its fringe settlements transforming them into suburbs.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Brisbane was the largest administrative, commercial and industrial centre in Queensland. Two-thirds of the colony's imports were unloaded onto Brisbane wharves. Administration had become centralised and risen in importance with the expansion of government services. The number of civil servants (excluding teachers) had increased, many of whom were located in Brisbane. Increasingly private organisations were established in, or relocated to, Brisbane, centralising control there. With its population of 119,428 in 1901 the city had a sophistication and diversity not found elsewhere in Queensland.
In February 1909 the Queensland Figaro reported that "Mr Frank Brodribb has purchased 'Linden', Gladstone Road, a handsome residence with charming grounds, occupied for some time by Mr and Mrs Pickworth. Mr Brodribb with his family will shortly take up residence there". Titles show that the property was purchased in his wife's name, Jessie Scott Brodribb, in November 1908.
The Brodribb family was part of Brisbane's upper stratum of society, which at this time still comprised graziers, leading businessmen and professional men. Frank Kenric Brodribb was the son of Darling Downs property-owner Francis Claudius Brodribb, whose sheep station, "Kurrowah", was located between Millmerran and Cecil Plains. The elder Brodribb died in 1904 leaving a considerable estate, including his station, in trust for his four daughters and only son. Frank K Brodribb appears to have owned other properties in Brisbane, including a house in Bower Street off Gladstone Road in 1916 and, until its sale in 1917, a commercial building in Queen Street, Brisbane, occupied by the Union Bank of Australia. Jessie Brodribb was a daughter of early Queensland settler and builder John Campbell. The couple married in September 1904 at St Andrews Anglican Church, South Brisbane. They resided in the vicinity of Dutton Park from about 1908 after moving from Toowoomba.
By 18 February 1909 the Brodribbs were in residence at 'Linden'. They quickly renamed the residence 'Kurrowah' and their second son was born there in July of that year. Social occasions and fund-raising events held at Kurrowah were often centred on the garden; with guest lists including the state's social elite.
In January 1915, architectural firm Chambers and Powell called tenders "for the erection and completion of [a] Brick Residence, Gladstone-road". Drawings for its construction and that of a garage with pit, man's room, workshop, washing down shed and WC date the design to January 1914. In February 1916, the Brodribb's land was re-configured from three blocks to two with the former "Linden" (labelled `Old House') on the block to the east (Resub 2, 1ac 19.7p (4545m2)) and a "New House" on the block to the west (Resub 1, ). Construction of the new Kurrowah was completed by 1916 when it was included in the Queensland Post Office Directory 1916-17 edition.
The siting of the new house conforms to the preference of Brisbane's wealthier residents to site their homes on its hill tops and ridges, seeking "space, air, view, breeze, drainage, display... combined with a rustic home, they ... also settled ... on acreages outside the town boundaries". Initially Brisbane's social divisions, as in Australia's other capitals, were topographical (between ridge or hill and gully) but later in the nineteenth century, especially after the introduction of mass transport such as trams and trains, increasingly whole suburbs acquired class labels.
No description of the house appeared in the media at the time of its completion. However, newspaper articles reporting later social events reveal that the "wide tile piazza was utilised for dancing.... Supper was served in the lounge". On another occasion, "[t]he reception rooms were beautified with [flowers].... The supper table...was set in the large panelled dining room.... Dancing was enjoyed on the wide, tiled piazza". There was a concrete tennis court in the grounds from at least 1923 which was utilised for tennis and jazz parties.
Domestic architecture in Australia in the first two decades of the twentieth century was notable for its use of popular architectural treatments characterised by a conservative eclecticism. Before the modern movement shunned the predilection for styles, English Queen Anne and Arts and Crafts influences were slowly supplanted by the Californian Bungalow and Spanish Mission styles from The United States of America in the quest for architecture appropriate for Australian conditions. Another development, in the yards of affluent home owners, was the introduction of the garage in the back yard adjacent to the fence, usually in materials matching the house, to house the newly acquired car.
The design of Kurrowah demonstrates this evolution and these preferences of the affluent classes at this period. Architectural influences evident in the design of Kurrowah are mostly derived from England and the work of architects such as Charles Voysey, combined with some features in common with the Bungalow. Essentially romantic in style, it has steep gabled roofs with decorative terracotta tiling, tall slender chimneys and deep recessed verandahs supported on substantial masonry piers. The drama of the exterior with its contrasting exterior finishes (light-coloured roughcast walls against dark brick work, shingles, mouldings and timber detailing) was repeated in the interior with dark timber panelling, ceiling beams and battens contrasted against smooth light-coloured friezes, ceilings and heavily decorated plaster embellishments.
Kurrowah demonstrates a progression in the evolution of domestic architectural planning and decoration. Whilst maintaining picturesque influences such as nooks and bays, a move toward functionalism in line with overseas fashion is evident. The developing rationale provided rooms arranged for greater convenience, more attuned to the occupants' needs and the environmental benefits of aspect. The central hall is wider in the vicinity of the more public areas of the house to accommodate this active area; the piazzas and morning room provide outdoor living, appropriate for the climate; the kitchen is integrated as an ordinary room and features such as built-in cupboards and wardrobes are provided for greater convenience. The move towards a simpler, healthier, coherently arranged, easy to maintain interior is evident in the choice of finishes such as timber wall panelling and parquetry floors.
Kurrowah's architect, Lange Leopold Powell, was born on 2 July 1886 in Rockhampton. Educated in Brisbane, he was articled to Brisbane architectural firm Addison and Corrie. After he completed his training and gained some experience he travelled to England in 1908, where he joined the London architectural firm of Belcher & Co. Returning to Australia in 1910 he married in April 1911. In the following year he formed a partnership with Claude William Chambers (Chambers and Powell) based in Brisbane. During 1915 Chambers moved to Sydney to practise, leaving Powell working in Brisbane. In 1920 Powell began practising on his own. Between 1922 and 1924 he was in partnership with George Hutton (Queensland Government Architect). He practised on his own again between 1925 and 1927 before going into partnership as Atkinson, Powell and Conrad from 1927 to 1930. This was followed by a partnership with his senior draftsman, George Rae from 1931 to 1933; followed again by sole practice until his death on 29 October 1938.
During this career Powell played a significant role in the development of the architecture profession. He served as honorary secretary (1910–15), councillor, vice-president (1923-7) and president (1927-31) of the Queensland Institute of Architects; became a member of Queensland's first Board of Architects and for many years was the Queensland representative on the Australian Institute of Architects' federal council and its president from 1928 to 1929. With Sir Charles Rosenthal he drafted the constitution of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (1930) and became its second president (1932-3). He also represented the Queensland Board of Architects on the R.A.I.A.'s board of architectural education. He became a fellow of the Queensland Institute of Architects (1918), the Royal Institute of British Architects (1929) and the R.A.I.A. (1930).
Powell is noted for his commercial buildings and churches employing a diversity of styles. His obituary in 1938 described him as one of Brisbane's leading architects. Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, John William Charles Wand praised him saying, "he had done much to beautify St John's Cathedral", and that Powell "was a genuine artist whose love of beauty was his master passion.... He delighted to use his gift for religious purposes. The great Masonic Temple in Brisbane will long remain to keep his memory green in the minds of those who admired his art". A number of Powell-designed buildings are entered in the Queensland Heritage Register namely:
Austral Motors Building, Fortitude Valley
BAFS Building, Brisbane CBD
Ballow Chambers, Spring Hill
Holy Trinity Church, Mackay
Masonic Temple, Brisbane CBD
National Bank of Australasia, Mossman
St Andrews Uniting Church, Bundaberg
St Martin's House, Brisbane CBD
St Mark's Anglican Church, Warwick
His design contributions to other churches illustrate his interest in interior decoration; such as the carved-stone reredos in Holy Trinity Church, Fortitude Valley) and the altar and triptych (painted by William Bustard) for the Lady Chapel of St John's Cathedral, Brisbane CBD).
Powell also designed about 30 houses and remodelled or made additions to another five. Of the other 29 Powell-designed houses only five are known to survive. These are:
his own residence at 50 Eldernell Terrace, Hamilton, dating from 1923
26 Thornbury Street, Spring Hill (1912)
3 Moreton Street, New Farm, built for Mr A S Huybers in 1918
Mrs O Sandel's Residence in Windemere Road, Hamilton dating from 1920
a house for builder, George Stronach in Eldernell Terrace, Hamilton, built in 1931.
Powell's houses, mostly for wealthy clients, were of generous proportions and located in the select suburbs of Brisbane like Hamilton and Clayfield. Kurrowah's features are characteristic of his residential work and adhered to the stylistic preference of his clients and the period. In her undergraduate thesis on Powell, Margaret Kerr noted the characteristics of his residential work: solid brickwork with a stucco finish; steeply pitched tiled roofs; gable ends; tall chimneys; roof overhangs with exposed rafters; double-hung or casement windows; a broad flight of concrete entrance stairs with a solid balustrade of sweeping curves; a timber entrance porch and often an adjoining piazza; brick porch piers with stucco finish and red brick capping detail. Features specific to his brick houses included: arches in the base wall to assist with subfloor ventilation; gable ends finished with shingles or flat sheet with wide battens for a half-timbered effect; fireplaces finished with face brickwork. His interiors included dark oak panelling in the entrance hall and living room to door head height, with papered friezes; and fibrous plaster ceilings with elaborate decoration in the more expensive homes. Built-in cupboards were common.
All of these features constituted the home of a well-off Brisbane family. The lifestyle of the Brodribb family, which included regular entertaining, holidays and travel, was that of members of Queensland's upper social stratum. Substantial funds generated by a trust established at Francis Claudius Brodribb's death were successfully managed by his son-in-law, Canon Thomas Pughe. In 1924 part of that estate, "Kurrowah", a pastoral property comprising, plains, river flats and open forest country with about of Condamine River frontage, which had produced good quality wool, was sold; realising a significant sum of money for the beneficiaries.
All of Kurrowah's extensions were built during the Brodribb's ownership. By 1923 a suspended timber verandah, accessed through the panelled drawing room had been added to the front elevation. In 1923 a timber extension was added to the master bedroom at the rear. At this time a garage with attached accommodation was located where the current cottage stands. Floor plans dating from after 1930, show plans for the conversion of this garage with accommodation into a cottage and use of one of the public rooms as a bedroom. By 1946, but probably prior to 1938, a further extension at the rear, creating a fifth bedroom, was added.
In 1938 Mrs Brodribb attempted to sell Kurrowah but was not successful. The house at the time was described by Isles, Loves & Co Pty Ltd, auctioneers, as follows: "Kurrowah" occupies one of the finest sites with beautiful views of river, city and mountains, and is situated on the corner of Gladstone and Deighton Roads, containing an area of . "Kurrowah" was designed by one of Brisbane's leading architects and is built of brick, concrete and stucco, with tiled roof in the Jacobean period of architecture and the interior is finished in a manner befitting such a fine home. The foundations were designed to carry another stor(e)y if so desired.
There are 5 bedrooms, dressing room, den, music room and balcony, beautiful piazza with tiled floor to (the) Eastern side, 2 bathrooms, well-appointed laundry and all modern conveniences throughout, kitchen, pantry and maid's room, 3 separate garages, man's room, tennis court, lawns etc.
In December 1940 Frank Kenric Brodribb died at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital at South Brisbane, aged 71. The following June, Kurrowah was subdivided into five lots with the house occupying the large central lot while four small lots of between about were excised from the garden. These were auctioned on 28 June 1941. Described as:
4 Magnificent Blocks being part of Mrs F K Brodribb's beautiful property, situated on the corner of Gladstone and Deighton Roads, occupying one of the finest positions. High with excellent views and on the tramline. Every convenience - gas, water, electric light and sewerage available, bitumen roads. Three lots were sold immediately and the fourth in 1944.
By 1946, two of these sites had been built upon. This subdivision conforms to the trend, which The Courier-Mail reported in 1938, of renewed interest in subdivision of land in Brisbane after a long-term lull during and after the Depression.
Mrs Brodribb died in May 1951 and the property passed to her son, Kenric Colin Campbell Brodribb and Queensland Trustees Ltd. Kurrowah was sold in February 1953 to Francis Arthur Rushbrook, who in turn sold it to Robert and Mary Murray in 1955. No additions were made to the house during the Murray's ownership and its interior remains highly intact. This level of intactness is uncommon in houses that are almost a century old, and although there have been minor alterations, the quality of its interior design and decorative character is apparent. Extension to the cottage and the addition of a small structure beside the double garage, used as accommodation by the Murray's gardener, date from after 1946.
Although nearby houses including the former "Linden" (later called "Mangerton" by its owner, Dr Morgan Lane) were demolished for higher density housing, Kurrowah remained a family home set in a large garden, although surrounded by suburban development. The Murray family retained the property until its sale in 2013.
Description
Kurrowah is a substantial, rendered brick residence standing on a high ridge in Dutton Park. The allotment is over and a "battle axe block", with the house accessed via a long driveway from Gladstone Road. Behind the house (to the north) are ancillary buildings along the rear boundary. The one-storey house faces south-west, down the sloping yard to Gladstone Road, and has striking vistas to the southern mountain ranges.
The house is designed in an eclectic, revival style with a solid character relieved by decorative patterns with Scottish references in architectural and decorative details. The building form is dynamic with multiple projecting rooms sheltered by steep, intersecting gables. The gable ends are decorated with timber panelling or terracotta shingles and the barge boards are moulded terracotta tiles. The exterior walls are roughcast stucco painted white with bands of red facebrick outlining features of the building. The same brick is used for three carefully modelled chimneys, which rise from sturdy bases to tall, slender stacks. It is high-set on brick piers at the front and low-set at the rear, and the understorey is accessible through arched openings in the perimeter wall. The windows are primarily two banks of small, timber-framed casements with multiple panes.
A wide verandah "piazza" runs along the south-eastern side.
The north-eastern side is the rear of the house and the gable ends here are clad with weatherboards and are vented with timber louvres. Projecting from the southern end of this side is a timber-framed, weatherboard-clad room with a hipped roof clad with terracotta tiles. It has a hexagonal end wall and windows that include later, timber-framed casements with green lights. At the northern end of the north-eastern side is a piazza, enclosed with more recent timber-framed awning windows.
The north-western side is less articulated and shelters a small back-of-house court, reflecting its service rooms inside. A timber-framed room projects from the northern end. It has walls clad with weatherboards and a pyramidal roof clad with terracotta tiles with a terracotta finial. The windows in this room are also later, timber-framed casements with green lights. This room is set on masonry piers with roughcast stucco. In the understorey under the kitchen at the southern end of this side is a laundry.
From the front, the house looms over the drive, which passes the house on the western side to reach the garages behind. A concrete path, with impressed and coloured diamond shapes, winds up from near the road to the front concrete stair with heavy, sweeping rendered masonry balustrades. The chimney breast is conspicuous with a central, decorative diamond pattern of polychromatic bricks. A small, gabled porch with a colourful, tessellated tile floor shelters the front entrance. At the western end of the front elevation is a later timber-framed porch, clad with sheets and battens and enclosed with more recent timber-framed awning windows.
The front door is timber with a high waist and a large glazed top panel. A small brass knocker has a portrait of William Wallace with sword and features "SCOTLAND", "WALLACE" and "ANNO DOM MCCCVI" (1305, the year of Wallace's death), above which are two kangaroos holding a thistle. The fanlight of the front door and the adjacent hall window are divided into small panes by lead cames.
The layout of the house comprises principal reception rooms at the front (south-west) with discreet service rooms on the western side and a separate bedroom wing at the rear (north-east). Circulation is via a central hall divided into distinct sections, reflecting hierarchy of use: wide and decorative in the front hall; narrower and less-decorative in the bedroom wing; and less-decorative still in the service rooms. The reception rooms include a drawing, dining, and morning rooms; den; and another room, designated as a bedroom by the 1930s. The adjacent service area includes a scullery, kitchen, and maid's room. The bedroom wing includes a master bedroom with adjoining dressing room, three other bedrooms, bathroom, and toilet.
The house interior has a distinctly heavy character brought about through an extensive use of dark-stained timber wall panelling, small windows, deep-relief plasterwork on principal ceilings, and other weighty decorative treatments. A distinctive feature of the house is the use of splayed window and door reveals in the front hall and the drawing room, which serve to reduce glare and also to suggest a thicker wall, inferring a weightier construction. The internal partitions are rendered masonry with high-quality, moulded timber joinery throughout and the house retains original timber built-in wardrobes. The house retains early electrical lighting including early fittings and shades, an electrical servant bell system, and original door and window hardware. The dressing room retains an early pedestal basin. The bathroom and kitchen fit-outs are not original. The timber-framed extensions have walls and ceilings lined with sheet material with timber batten cover strips.
The south-eastern piazza is reached through timber-framed, glazed French doors from the south-eastern rooms. The piazza floor is colourful, tessellated tiles on a suspended concrete slab. Two murals depicting bucolic scenes are painted on the piazza walls. At the northern end of the bedroom wing is the enclosed piazza. Its floor is recent ceramic tiles that are not of cultural heritage significance. Doors into this room are original French doors, re-fashioned to be bi-folding.
Three ancillary buildings stand against the rear (northern) boundary. From east to west these are; the cottage, the garages, and a small timber structure of one room. The cottage is a low-set, one-storey building with a roughcast rendered masonry core, a steep, timber-framed hipped roof clad with terracotta tiles, and two banks of small, casement windows that match those of the main house, including hardware. (Later, lightweight extensions to the core are not of cultural heritage significance.) The garages comprise two attached, timber-framed structures and the construction shows the western garage was built first. The earlier garage has a timber board floor while the later garage has a concrete floor. Both are rectangular, timber-framed structures clad externally with cement sheets. Both have a gable roof with timber battened gable ends; the earlier roof is clad with terracotta tiles and the later roof with corrugated metal sheets. The small timber structure of one room is an early timber building, set on low concrete block stumps with metal ant caps. It is a one-storey, timber-framed building with a hipped roof clad with corrugated metal sheets. The sides and rear are clad with v-jointed timber boards the front is clad with later timber chamferboards. The side and rear walls have a timber, lattice ventilation panel with a coarse metal insect screen and it retains an early timber-framed, sliding sash of fixed timber louvres.
The garden consists of exotic specimen trees and lawn with early concrete garden beds. The front fence includes early low, masonry walls of Brisbane tuff with prominent mortar.
Heritage listing
Kurrowah was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 13 June 2014 having satisfied the following criteria.
The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history.
Kurrowah (1915-1916) is important in illustrating the contribution of notable architect, Lange Leopold Powell, to the evolution of Queensland's domestic architecture.
It is important evidence of the lifestyle of Queensland's prosperous elite in Brisbane's suburbs in the early twentieth century.
The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
Kurrowah is a rare and intact example of an architect-designed domestic interior from the early twentieth century.
The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.
Kurrowah is a fine, intact representative example of the early twentieth century housing type preferred by prosperous residents. Romantic in its architectural expression and generous in its proportions, it is sited on a spacious allotment on a hill top near the river, advantageously orientated to capture views and breezes. Characteristically, these houses: were architect-designed; used quality materials; had a generous, slightly modified traditional floor plan with a distinct hierarchy of rooms; and included facilities for servants and accommodation for a motor vehicle.
The place is important because of its aesthetic significance.
Located within a garden setting in an elevated position removed from the road with views to the west and south, Kurrowah is of aesthetic significance for its attractive Romantic form and composition. Designed by notable Queensland interwar architect Lange L Powell, it features a skilful use of stylistic treatments, a striking use of decoration and generously proportioned planning. Its fine interior craftsmanship is significant for its high degree of creative achievement. The highly intact interior displays considerable artistic value.
References
Attribution
External links
Queensland Heritage Register
Heritage of Brisbane
Dutton Park, Queensland
Houses in Brisbane
Articles incorporating text from the Queensland Heritage Register
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The Bermuda Militia Artillery was a unit of part-time soldiers organised in 1895 as a reserve for the Royal Garrison Artillery detachment of the Regular Army garrison in Bermuda. Militia Artillery units of the United Kingdom and Colonies were intended to man coastal batteries in times of war, which were manned by under-strength numbers of regular army gunners in peace time. The unit was embodied during both world wars, fulfilling its role within the garrison, and also sending contingents overseas to more active theatres of the wars.
History
Bermuda had maintained its own militias (in which all able-bodied, adult males, free or enslaved, were required to serve) since British rule officially began in 1612. With the buildup of the Royal Naval Dockyard and the attendant Regular Army garrison in the years following the American War of Independence, however, the Government of Bermuda quickly lost interest in funding a militia that seemed superfluous. Following the American War of 1812, it ceased to renew the Militia Act, and the military reserve was allowed to lapse. For the next eight decades, the Secretary of State for War, and the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda implored the local government in vain to raise a military reserve force as vast funds were channelled into building up the colony's defences. The colonial government, however, feared being saddled with the entire cost of maintaining the garrison, and was also concerned of the social discord that would result from raising either racially integrated or segregated units.
Major General Sir William Reid, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda from 1839 to 1846, was forced to raise a body of voluntary reservists without the assistance of the local government, which recruited part-time soldiers into the regular army and the Board of Ordnance military corps without racial discrimination, although relatively few white Bermudians enlisted. Those serving in the army were trained as light infantry, with an emphasis on amphibious operations.
Although this unit was short-lived, other Bermudians appear to have continued to serve on a local-service, and presumably part-time, basis (many others simply enlisted as regular full-time soldiers) with the regular detachments in Bermuda (note First Sergeant Robert John Simmons of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, who died of wounds as a prisoner of war following the assault on Battery Wagner. Simmons was described by abolitionist, lecturer, novelist, playwright, historian and former slave William Wells Brown as "a young man of more than ordinary abilities who had learned the science of war in the British Army". Simmons was 26 when he died, and too young to have served under Reid's scheme).
In Britain, too, many citizens felt the government was neglecting the defence of that island by deploying much of the army around the World on garrison duty. The Militia and the Yeomanry (which could no longer rely on compulsory service), together with the regular army units that did remain in Britain, were unable to field forces thought adequate for the defence of the island against a large, modern continental army. Following the Crimean War, when reserve forces had to be dispatched to the war zone, it was realised that the British Army's Imperial garrison obligations not only left Britain vulnerable, but also did not leave aside sufficient uncommitted forces to compose an effective expeditionary force such as had been required in the Crimea. Britain's primary motivation in supporting the Ottoman Empire against Russia was to prevent the border of the Russian Empire advancing to meet that of British India. Potential Russian interference with Britain's East Asian trade was also a concern. Following the Indian Mutiny of 1857, it was feared that Indian units might be encouraged to mutiny should there be a Russian invasion, and might mutiny in any case were British units in India reduced in number.
As funds for the increase of the British Army were not forthcoming, and with the threat of invasion by France, the government tackled these issues by raising a Volunteer Force of part-time soldiers in 1859. Composed primarily of locally-organised Volunteer Rifle Corps, this force could be embodied in times of emergency, but its volunteers could not be compelled to serve abroad. Although the volunteer rifle corps would prove popular, the most immediate requirement was for artillerymen to man the coastal batteries that were the first line of defence. To make up the shortfall of reserve gunners, a number of existing Militia infantry regiments were retrained as the Militia Artillery that, along with the remainder of the Militia, the Yeomanry, and the Volunteer Force, would be merged into the Territorial Force (subsequently the Territorial Army) in 1908, when terms-of-service (a set number of years for which the recruit was obligated to serve), among other changes, were introduced to the former volunteer units (from which soldiers could previously quit with fourteen days notice, except while embodied for training or active service). Terms of service had already applied to Militia soldiers.
In addition to creating these part-time reserve forces, the British Government sought to redeploy regular army units from imperial garrisons back to Britain, where they could be used for defence or to compose expeditionary forces to be sent overseas to war zones, and replacing them with full-time or part-time units raised locally. This proved difficult to accomplish. In some parts of the Empire, removing British Army regiments would invite insurrection, insurgency, or invasion (such as India, ever under threat from the Russian Empire, and which suffered the Great Mutiny of native regiments in 1857). Bermuda, while less likely to suffer insurrection, was an inviting target to Britain's potential enemies, notably the United States of America, thanks to its strategic location and the important Imperial defence assets located there, such as the Royal Naval Dockyard. Regular units could not be removed, therefore, 'til local reserves had been raised to replace them. As neither the London nor the Hamilton government was keen to pay for these units, decades more would pass before the regular army garrison in Bermuda began to be drawn down.
Bermuda's new tourism industry, pioneered in the latter 19th century by Princess Louise, Samuel Clemens and others, provided the Secretary of State with the leverage to compel the colonial government. He withheld his approval of American investment into the new Princess Hotel and the dredging of the shipping channel into St. George's Harbour as the first could provide a pretext for invasion (by the USA, to protect the interests of its nationals), and the latter would make it easier for an enemy force to invade. The Secretary wrote that he could not approve either project while Bermuda contributed nothing to her own defence. Accordingly, the Parliament of Bermuda passed three acts drafted by the London Government authorising the creation of voluntary, part-time artillery, rifle, and sappers-and-miners (engineers) units. The last unit was not raised, and the Royal Engineers 27th Company (Submarine Mining), which had been permanently reassigned from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Bermuda in 1888 (part of the company had been split off to create the new 40th Company, which remained in Halifax), continued to maintain the mine defences unaided. A reserve unit of engineers, the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers, would not be raised for another four decades.
Foundation
The Bermuda Militia Artillery (BMA), however, was raised in 1895. Although it was titled as a militia, it was in practice a voluntary organisation, akin to those of the Volunteer Force, except that volunteers for the Militia were enlisted for a term of service whereas members of the Volunteer Force could resign with fourteen days notice (except while embodied for training or active service).
The old militia, in England and Wales, as well as in Bermuda, had been a body of men who gathered annually to train, and could be called out and embodied in times of emergency. All males of military age who were fit to serve were required to do so. By the early 19th Century, the militia in Britain had become a smaller, voluntary force, from which the British Army often recruited trained soldiers. In Bermuda, which had seen the buildup of a regular army garrison, the militia had been allowed to lapse, but the American War of 1812 led to its resurrection. After the war, however, no further Militia Acts were passed and it ceased to exist.
Historically, the Militia Artillery (in Britain and in Bermuda) had been seen as the most critical component. Whereas the Militia infantry and the mounted units had embodied only for annual training, or during times or war or emergency (which included quelling the Privateer Riots in Bermuda), a standing force of the Militia Artillery had been required to maintain the coastal artillery defences in Britain and Bermuda, guarding against attacks that might come at any time. Also, the skills of the artilleryman required more training to acquire and maintain, and annual training camps were not sufficient, which led to more emphasis being placed on the requirements of the artillery. Advances in artillery and tactics, by the mid-19th Century, had actually increased the importance of the militia gunners in Britain. In Bermuda, roughly five hundred artillery pieces were emplaced by mid-century, but without the support of a militia, the regular gunners were sufficient to man only a fraction of them.
Although not a continuation of the original militia, the titling of the new Bermudian artillery reserve as the Bermuda Militia Artillery, rather than as the Bermuda Volunteer Artillery, followed the practice then current in Britain for similar units, which, though voluntary, were a continuation of the old militia.
The other volunteer unit raised at the same time as the BMA, the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps BVRC), restricted its recruitment to whites, and the BMA was made up almost entirely of blacks, although its officers were white. Although BVRC recruits, originally, could quit their corps with fourteen days notice, as with UK volunteer rifle regiments, BMA recruits enlisted for six years. After 27 days of basic training, they were liable only to attend annual camp. While in camp, they were subject to the Army Act, and military law. The BMA wore the standard Royal Artillery uniform, and cap badge.
Soldiers were originally recruited on a voluntary basis, though conscription was introduced during the Second World War, and re-introduced during the 1950s. Small contingents were sent to England in 1897, to take part in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and in 1902, for the coronation of King Edward VII. At the first camp, in 1896, the unit had a single company with a strength of 10 men and three officers. A second company was added as its strength grew to more than 200 over the next decade, but, as recruitment fell, its numbers dropped below 100 men again by 1914. The unit was already embodied for annual camp when war was declared in 1914.
The First World War
During the First World War, two contingents served as part of the larger Royal Garrison Artillery detachment to the Western Front. The first, 201 officers and men, under the command of Major Thomas Melville Dill, left for France on 31 May 1916. A second contingent, of two officers and sixty other ranks, left Bermuda on 6 May 1917, and was merged with the first contingent in France. The contingent, titled the Bermuda Contingent, Royal Garrison Artillery, served primarily in ammunition supply, at dumps, and in delivering ammunition to batteries in the field. The Contingent served at the Somme from June to December 1916. They were then moved away from the Front, serving on docks until April, 1917, when they were attached to the Canadian Corps, serving in the Battle of Vimy Ridge. They took part in the Battle of Passchendaele (or the Third Battle of Ypres), from 24 June until 22 October, where three men were killed, and several wounded. Two men received the Military Medal. A total of 10 Gunners are commemorated on the CWGC Website. In Bermuda, the BMA was demobilised on 31 December 1918, and when the overseas contingent returned in July, 1919, it was to no unit. Thirty men who chose to remain on temporarily re-enlisted in the RGA, and the rest were demobilised. Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig commended the contingent, writing:
Between the wars
This was not the end for the BMA, however, as it was re-constituted for the annual camp of 1920, when fifty new recruits joined six officers and 154 other ranks who had enlisted before or during the war. In 1921, one company was tasked with providing mobile detachments, and the other for serving at fixed batteries.
In 1924, the Royal Garrison Artillery was amalgamated again with the Royal Field Artillery as the Royal Artillery, although the Royal Horse Artillery remained as a separate arm within the Royal Regiment of Artillery. In 1928, the last of the regular army Royal Artillery detachments, along with the Royal Engineers Fortress Company which manned searchlights at the batteries, were withdrawn from Bermuda due to post-war reductions in expenditure. By 1935, all of the batteries in Bermuda became inactive, except the Examination Battery at Saint David's Head, which the BMA assumed complete responsibility for operating. Also in 1928, the BMA was reorganised along the lines of the Territorial Army. Although it ceased at this point to be a militia unit, it was not re-titled as the Militia Artillery units in the United Kingdom had been.
With re-organisation as a territorial unit, training requirements became a weekly drill night, plus an annual two week camp. All of its enlisted men were discharged, and the unit slowly began to rebuild its strength through new recruitment. In 1930, the War Office also ceased funding annual camps outside of the British Isles, citing a lack of funds, and the Bermuda government began funding training. Although the colonial government began paying a contribution towards the costs of the BVRC during this period, the Imperia government remained completely responsible for funding the BMA until its re-organisation in 1951. In 1931, a new territorial unit, the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers (BVE), was raised to take up the role of manning the search light detachment at Saint David's Battery (and in 1940 it also absorbed the BVRC signals element, providing wireless communications for the garrison).
In 1936, on the occasion of the death of King George V, the BMA was involved in what could have been a severe international incident. The BMA had been instructed to fire a memorial salute from one of the two 4.7" guns at Saint David's Battery. This salute was to consist of seventy blank rounds, one for each year of the King's life, fired at one-minute intervals. Because of the difficulty of storing ammunition in Bermuda's humid climate, there proved to be only twenty-three rounds of blank ammunition in stock, and the remainder used were all headed ammunition. As the firing was to commence at 8am (on 21 January), and it was thought unlikely any vessels would be in the danger area, it was decided to proceed with the salute, ensuring the guns were elevated for maximum range (8,000 yards), out to sea. The firing began at 08:00, and was over seventy minutes later. What the BMA gunners were unaware of, however, was that a Colombian Navy destroyer, the ARC Antioquia, was at the receiving end of their barrage. The destroyer. built in Portugal by a British company, was under the command of a retired Royal Naval officer (part of the British Naval Mission to Colombia), and was arriving at Bermuda to undergo repairs at the HM Dockyard. Although the ship's crewmembers were alarmed to find themselves on the receiving end of an artillery barrage, the ship fortunately was not hit.
The Second World War
In 1939, a new battery of two 6" guns was constructed at Warwick Camp. Despite this, the manpower requirements of the BMA simply did not make full use of the number of black males available for military service when the war began. Rather than integrate the BVRC or the BVE, it was decided to raise a second infantry unit, the Bermuda Militia Infantry, to recruit blacks, and this was grouped administratively with the BMA. Forces throughout the Empire were mobilised on 3 September 1939, in anticipation of the declaration of war. Unlike in the Great War, when the two local units relied entirely on volunteers, conscription was introduced soon after the outbreak of hostilities, with blacks directed into the BMA or BMI, and whites into the BVRC. Volunteers and conscripts served full-time for the duration of the War.
In June, 1940, the BVRC sent a small contingent of volunteers to the Lincolnshire Regiment depot in England. A handful of volunteers from the BMA and the BVE travelled with them, separating in England to join the regular artillery or engineers. The BMA contribution to that contingent consisted of a single officer, Lieutenant Patrick Lynn Purcell, who, like most of the BMA's white officers, had begun his service in the ranks of the BVRC. Purcell would serve with the a coastal artillery detachment of the Royal Artillery in Sierra Leone, due to his similar experience with the BMA. He eventually transferred to the Lincolnshire Regiment, serving in North West Europe, and, having reached the rank of Major, being appointed Press Officer of the British Area of Occupation in Germany, following victory in Europe.
The 1940 contingent was to be the last from Bermuda for nearly four years. Some members of the Bermuda Militia were selected for pilot training at the Bermuda Flying School, and sent on to the Royal Air Force. After the school closed in 1942 (due to a surplus of trained pilots), the organisation overseeing it was converted into a recruiting and selection arm of the Royal Canadian Air Force, sending 60 volunteers, primarily from the various local military units, to that service for aircrew training before the end of the War.
Second-Lieutenant Richard Masters Gorham, who had been commissioned into the Bermuda Militia Artillery from the ranks of the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers on 20 December 1940, to replace Second Lieutenant Francis J. Gosling (who had trained as a pilot at the Bermuda Flying School and was to depart for the United Kingdom in January for transfer to the Royal Air Force) learnt of an instruction from the Army Council that prevented commanding officers from barring officers under their command from taking any training course for which they volunteered. Gorham and Second-Lieutenant Michael F. Gregg (who had been commissioned into the Bermuda Militia Artillery from the ranks of the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers on 28 May 1941) relinquished their Bermuda Militia Artillery local-service commissions on 27 June 1942 in order to receive regular Royal Artillery emergency commissions on 8 July 1942. Trained as pilots by the Royal Air Force, they served in Air Observation Post squadrons controlled by the Royal Air Force but with gunners as pilot-fire controllers. Gorham served in North Africa and Italy. In Italy, while in command of B Flight of 655 Squadron, he played the decisive role in the Battle of Monte Cassino when he spotted a German division moving in half-tracked German Armoured Personnel Carriers to counter attack the British 5th Division and the Polish Corps, which were themselves attacking the German-occupied monastery. Contacting the senior Royal Artillery fire control officer on the ground. All two-thousand field guns within range were switched from their local targets and placed under his control. Gorham directed their fire down onto the German Division. The guns fired for hours, with Gorham taking turns with other AOP pilots. The German division was completely destroyed, and the Allied ground forces broke through four days later. For this action, Gorham received the Distinguished Flying Cross, a relative rarity for an Army officer. After the war, Gorham would serve as a Captain, second-in-command of the Bermuda Rifles (as the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps was retitled in 1949). On his retirement in 1954, He retired from the army with the substantive rank of captain, he was awarded the honorary rank of colonel in the Royal Artillery and was subsequently knighted.
Despite that steady outward trickle, however, fears of weakening the garrison meant that a moratorium on further drafts from the island was in force until 1943. By then, the likelihood of a German attack, or sabotage, had greatly diminished, and American forces, including artillery detachments, had been built-up on the island. This meant that local forces could be spared for service overseas, and both the BVRC and the Bermuda Militia detached companies to send across the Atlantic. The Bermuda Militia force, composed of members of the BMA and the BMI, trained with the BVRC contingent as an infantry force at Prospect Camp. The BVRC contingent was sent to the Lincolns in 1944. The Bermuda Militia contingent, however, proceeded to North Carolina, where it formed the training cadre of a new regiment, the Caribbean Regiment, being formed on a US Army base in North Carolina. Contingents, mostly of new recruits, were sent from various West Indian territories. In North Carolina, they were assessed for fitness, then trained as infantry. The unit was then posted to Italy in 1944. After serving briefly in the field, the Regiment escorted a shipment of Axis prisoners to Egypt, then remained there as prisoner-of-war (POW) camp guards until the end of hostilities. The Caribbean Regiment was disbanded after the war, and the Bermuda Militia contingent members returned to their original units in Bermuda. The BMI, along with the BVE, was disbanded in 1946. The BMA and the BVRC were both reduced to a skeleton command structure before recruitment for both units began again in 1951. The two were then grouped together, by the Defence (Local Forces) Act, 1949, under the command of Headquarters, Local Forces.
Post war
The military garrison existed primarily to defend the Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda located on Ireland Island. It was announced in 1950 that the dockyard would be closed, and the military garrison was withdrawn along with it. The last Imperial Defence Plan was produced in 1953, and this was the last year in which the BMA and the BVRC were tasked under it. The Regular Army was withdrawn, ostensibly, on 25 April 1953, but detachments would be posted on the island until 1957 when a company of the Duke Of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI) was withdrawn.
The local territorials might have been disbanded as their role had disappeared, but the Bermuda Government chose to maintain both remaining units, entirely at its own cost. The last coastal artillery pieces were removed from use in 1953, however, and, rather than integrate the BVRC, it was decided to convert the BMA to the infantry role. The unit continued to wear the Royal Artillery uniform and cap badge, but was re-organised, equipped and trained. This also required changes to the rank and command structure as an infantry unit requires more junior NCOs than a comparably-sized artillery unit. As an infantry unit, it was relocated to Warwick Camp, along with the Bermuda Rifles. Conscription was reintroduced, to the Bermuda Rifles in 1957, and to the BMA in 1960, although both units remained part-time. The permanent staff members of the BMA were now provided by Regular Army infantry units, instead of artillery units.
In 1965, with racial segregation rapidly becoming politically inexpedient, it was decided to end the unnecessary duplication of effort and the BMA was amalgamated with the Bermuda Rifles (as the BVRC had been renamed) on 1 September, to create the Bermuda Regiment.
Originally, the part-time reserve units in Bermuda, the Channel Islands and Malta had numbered collectively as 28th in the British Army order of precedence, but were ordered within that according to the placement of their parent corps in the regular army. This meant, that the Bermuda Militia Artillery (BMA), as part of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, preceded the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC) despite being the second of the two to be raised. Today, the Bermuda Regiment, as an amalgam of the BMA and BVRC, is 28th.
See also
Militia Artillery units of the United Kingdom and Colonies
Bermuda Garrison
Royal Bermuda Regiment
Royal Artillery
British Army
Territorial Army (United Kingdom)
References
Part of
Bermuda Garrison
Military of Bermuda
Bermuda Volunteer/Territorial Army Units 1895-1965
External links
BMA History by Jennifer Hind
POTSI (archive): BMA Images
POTSI (alternate archive): BMA Images
POTSI (alternate archive): Commanders and Adjutants of the BMA since formation, by Jennifer Hind
Military of Bermuda
British colonial regiments
1895 establishments in Bermuda
Artillery units and formations of the British Army
Militias
Military units and formations of Bermuda in World War II
Units and formations of the Royal Artillery
Militia regiments of the Royal Artillery
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Gardner Flint Minshew II (born May 16, 1996) is an American football quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL). He previously played in the NFL for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Raised in Brandon, Mississippi, Minshew grew up playing an air raid offense style of football under Wyatt Rogers, the father of Will Rogers. He became Brandon High School's starting quarterback as a freshman in 2011 after their varsity team starter fractured his arm in a game, and he proceeded to lead the Brandon Bulldogs to two Mississippi High School Activities Association championship games and one victory. He committed to Troy University, but left before ever playing college football for them and instead spent a year at Northwest Mississippi Community College, where he took the Rangers to the NJCAA National Football Championship. From there, Minshew spent two seasons at East Carolina. He still had one year of NCAA Division I eligibility when he graduated, and enrolled at Washington State University as a graduate student to play for the Cougars in the aftermath of Tyler Hilinski's death. There, he set a Pac-12 Conference single-season record for passing yards, led the Cougars to an Alamo Bowl championship, and received the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award.
The Jaguars selected Minshew in the sixth round of the 2019 NFL Draft, and he beat Alex McGough and Tanner Lee in training camp to become Nick Foles' backup quarterback that season. Foles, however, fractured his clavicle in the first game of the season, leading Minshew to become the Jaguars' starting quarterback. When Foles departed in free agency, Minshew became Jacksonville's starter for the 2020 season, but he too suffered a major injury, fracturing multiple bones and tearing a ligament in his thumb. When Minshew returned, he split time with Mike Glennon on the field. Just before the 2021 season, Minshew was traded to the Eagles, where he backed up Jalen Hurts.
Early life and high school career
Minshew was born on May 16, 1996, in Flowood, Mississippi, and was raised in Brandon by Flint Minshew, a contractor, and Kim Minshew, a middle school math teacher. Kim was also a former women's basketball player at Mississippi State. Minshew and his father adopted Mike Leach's air raid offense playing style while Minshew was playing flag football in seventh grade. While doing so, he formed a strong bond with Wyatt Rogers, the area coach who initially taught him how to enact that style of play. Rogers was the father of future college football quarterback Will Rogers, and Minshew in turn became the younger Rogers's mentor.
Minshew began playing football for Brandon High School in 2011, serving as the starting quarterback for the all-freshman team until varsity quarterback Trey Polk broke his arm partway through the season. The next year, Minshew helped take the Brandon Bulldogs to the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) 6A championship game, where they lost 31–23 to South Panola. Minshew had 223 passing yards and one touchdown in the title game. He took the Bulldogs to an MHSAA state championship victory as a senior in 2014, with 3,541 passing yards and 31 touchdowns en route to the finals. In four years of high school football, Minshew had 9,705 passing yards, 88 passing touchdowns, a .588 completion percentage, 1,417 rushing yards, 17 rushing touchdowns, and only 24 interceptions. He was ranked a three-star recruit by Rivals.com and two stars by 247Sports.com.
High school statistics
College career
Troy and Northwest Mississippi
Minshew's first two attempts at college football recruitment fell through: his primary recruiter at the University of Akron died in a car accident, while the coaching staff that recruited him for the University of Alabama at Birmingham left the program before he could matriculate. Finally, in December 2014, he committed to attending Troy University and playing football for the Trojans. He matriculated at Troy in January 2015, but left that May before he ever played in a game. In addition to describing the university as a poor fit, Minshew found it unlikely that he would unseat starting Trojans quarterback Brandon Silvers, and he began to look for other opportunities.
On June 3, 2015, Minshew signed a National Letter of Intent to transfer out of Troy and enroll at Northwest Mississippi Community College, where he would play college football with the Rangers in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA). Northwest Mississippi coach Jack Wright told Minshew that he was unlikely to become the starting quarterback there either, but he won the role one week after transferring, with his competition also transferring out of Northwest. He completed 21 of 31 passes for 332 yards, including a 61-yard touchdown, in his NJCAA debut and was named the Mississippi Association of Community & Junior Colleges (MACJC) Offensive Player of the Week. Minshew and the Rangers did not lose a game until October 16, when the East Mississippi Lions defeated them 49–16 in a second-half comeback. Minshew finished the game 18 of 37 for 211 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. The Rangers then advanced to the postseason, where they faced East Central Community College in the semifinals. Minshew went 18 of 28 for 168 yards and three touchdowns in the 27–20 victory, becoming the sixth Ranger to throw for 2,500 or more yards in one season.
After defeating Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College 34–24 in the MACJC Football Championship, the Rangers faced Rochester Community and Technical College in the NJCAA National Football Championship. Minshew completed 23 of 30 passes in Northwest Mississippi's 66–13 rout of Rochester, throwing for 421 yards and five touchdowns. After the 2015 NJCAA football season ended, Minshew was named an MACJC All-State Football First-Team selection, as well as an NJCAA All-American honorable mention. He finished the season with a 61 percent pass completion rate (223 of 367) and 28 touchdowns, and was first in the MACJC and second in the NJCAA with 3,288 passing yards.
East Carolina
2016 season
On May 3, 2016, Minshew signed a grant-in aid with East Carolina University, which enabled him to continue his football career with the Pirates at the NCAA Division I level. There, following the offseason departure of Kurt Benkert, Minshew was brought in to back up Philip Nelson. He made his East Carolina debut in Week 1, relieving Nelson midway through the third quarter of a 47–29 loss to Central Florida after the other quarterback suffered an injury. After entering the game, Minshew completed 12 of 27 passes for 192 yards, but was intercepted twice, and coach Scottie Montgomery was ambivalent towards Minshew's performance, telling reporters, "I would be remised if I said he did a great job". Nelson suffered another injury the next week at South Florida, and Minshew stepped in to complete 21 of 33 passes for 220 yards and one touchdown in the 38–22 loss. After that game, Montgomery told reporters, "He worked as well as he could." Montgomery also clarified that Minshew would not replace Nelson as the starting quarterback despite Nelson's injuries in consecutive games, saying, "If Philip's able to play, Philip is our starting quarterback right now. If he's not able to play, Gardner will be able to play and we're fine."
Minshew did not play again until November 5, replacing Nelson in the second quarter of a 45–24 loss to Tulsa. Minshew had career highs with 29 of 49 passes and 336 yards, but a number of on-field penalties hindered the Pirates. Montgomery attributed Nelson's benching to a nagging shoulder injury, but also suggested after the game that Minshew may get the start for East Carolina's Week 10 game against Southern Methodist, if only to preserve Nelson's health. Nelson ultimately started in the 55–31 loss to Southern Methodist, and was relieved by Minshew, the two combining for 284 passing yards. With Nelson still injured the next week, Minshew started in his first game for East Carolina on November 19, completing 16 of 25 for 238 yards and three touchdowns in the 66–31 loss to the Navy Midshipmen. He started again in the 2016 season finale, with 183 yards but two sacks in the 37–10 loss to Temple. Playing in seven games his sophomore season, Minshew completed 119 of 202 passes for 1,347 passing yards and eight touchdowns, with four interceptions.
2017 season
Although Thomas Sirk, a senior transfer from Duke University, was expected to become East Carolina's starting quarterback in 2017, Montgomery gave the title to Minshew after concerns about Sirk's history of Achilles tendon injuries, as well as Minshew's greater familiarity with his teammates. In the season opener against James Madison, Minshew completed 7 of 18 passes for 82 yards and one interception before he was benched at halftime in favor of Sirk. The reverse happened in the next game, with Minshew replacing Sirk after the latter suffered a hit to the head in the third quarter of a game against West Virginia. He went 7 for 13 with 137 yards, including a 95-yard touchdown pass to Trevon Brown, in the 56–20 loss. Minshew played his first full game of the season on September 16, completing 11 of 30 for 241 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception, including another 76-yard pass to Brown, in the 64–17 loss to Virginia Tech. After the Virginia Tech game, Montgomery elected to start Sirk against Connecticut, citing their respective advantages: Sirk was a better runner and Minshew a better passer, and East Carolina, he believed, would benefit from a stronger run game.
Minshew did not receive significant playing time again until October 14, when he relieved Sirk in the third quarter of a 63–21 loss to Central Florida. Montgomery was worried about protecting both of his quarterbacks and wanted Minshew to keep the ball in his hands as little as possible. He finished 6 of 12 for 69 yards and one touchdown. Minshew relieved Sirk the following week against Brigham Young when Sirk injured his throwing elbow. Entering the game with a 16–10 lead, Minshew completed six passes for 121 yards and two touchdowns, bringing the Pirates to a 33–17 victory. Relieving Sirk in a 52–27 loss to Houston on November 4, Minshew completed 52 of 68 passes, setting East Carolina records for both attempts and completions, for 463 yards, three touchdowns, and one interception. Minshew played a complete game the next week against Tulane, completing 25 of 52 for 228 yards with one touchdown and one interception, but East Carolina lost 31–24 in overtime. East Carolina definitively took their next game, defeating Cincinnati 48–20 behind Minshew, who completed 31 of 45 for 444 yards and four touchdowns. Minshew and ECU finished the season with a loss: he completed 28 of 54 passes for 351 yards and two touchdowns, but was intercepted three times, and Memphis took the game 70–13. After throwing for 2,140 yards and 16 touchdowns as a junior, Minshew graduated from East Carolina at the end of 2017 with a degree in communications.
Washington State
Minshew had one year of NCAA eligibility remaining after his early graduation from East Carolina, and although he had originally committed to playing for Alabama as a graduate student, he instead joined the Washington State Cougars. Minshew had reportedly not expected to play for Alabama, but used the announcement to draw interest from other schools, at which point Washington State head coach Mike Leach called him and asked, "You want to come lead the nation in passing?" Tyler Hilinski's January suicide had left the Cougars without a starting quarterback for the 2018 season, and Minshew was placed into competition with rising juniors Trey Tinsley and Anthony Gordon for the role. Minshew's familiarity with Leach's air raid offense helped promote him to starting quarterback just before the start of the season.
Washington State defeated Wyoming 41–19 in their 2018 season opener, with Minshew throwing for 319 yards and three touchdowns in his team debut. The next week, he had three touchdown passes and one rushing touchdown in Washington State's 31–0 shutout victory over San Jose State. Minshew did not suffer a loss with Washington State until Week 4, when he was the subject of a controversial hit from USC Trojans linebacker Porter Gustin. Pac-12 Conference officials determined that the hit did not meet the definition of targeting, and USC held on to win 39–36. Through the first six games of the season, Minshew had a 5–1 record and a NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)-leading 2,422 passing yards, 313 passing attempts, and 215 completions. He was named the Rose Bowl Game's Pac-12 Player of the Week on October 8, following his performance against Oregon State, where he completed 30 of 40 for 430 yards and five touchdowns in the 56–37 win. On November 17, while helping Washington State to their tenth season win in a 69–28 defeat of Arizona, Minshew completed 43 of 55 passes for 473 yards with no interceptions and a school record-setting seven touchdown passes. His only other loss of the year came in the Apple Cup, when Minshew completed 26 of 35 passes for 152 yards but was intercepted twice, with Washington State falling to the Washington Huskies 28–15.
Washington State faced Iowa State in the 2018 Alamo Bowl, with Minshew completing 35 of 49 passes for 299 yards, leading Washington State to a 28–26 victory, and taking home the bowl's Offensive MVP award. His 35 completions in the game were also an Alamo Bowl record, three more than Nick Foles set with Arizona in 2010. Minshew finished his graduate season with 468 completed passes in 662 attempts, 38 touchdowns, nine interceptions, and 4,776 passing yards, breaking both Connor Halliday's Washington State single-season passing yards record and Jared Goff's single-season Pac-12 record. His 450th completion, made in the second quarter of the Alamo Bowl, also broke Halliday's Pac-12 single-season completions record. In addition to being named to the 2018 All-Pac-12 First Team, Minshew was named the Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year and the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award for his performance with Washington State. He finished in fifth place in Heisman Trophy voting, behind Kyler Murray, Tua Tagovailoa, Dwayne Haskins and Will Grier.
NCAA Division I statistics
Professional career
Scouting and draft
In February 2019, Minshew was one of three Washington State football players, alongside Andre Dillard and James Williams, to receive an invitation from the National Football League (NFL) to that year's NFL Scouting Combine. As a quarterback whose style of offense prioritizes passing over rushing, his 40-yard dash speed at the combine did not stand out; coaches from various National Football League (NFL) teams also inquired as to why Minshew had attended four different colleges in as many years. Minshew had the second-largest hand size of any quarterback at the combine, with his span behind only Tyree Jackson's . Minshew was physically smaller than many of the other quarterbacks at the combine, and he told at least one coach, "I know I'm too short, too slow, but I won 11 fucking games last year". He was also confident that the popularity of other passing-heavy quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes, Jared Goff, and Baker Mayfield in the NFL would help his stock in the upcoming draft. 28 of 32 NFL teams also came to watch Minshew at Washington State's pro day, where he completed 41 of 46 passes. Of the five misses, three were dropped by the receiver, while two were true incompletions. Between the scouting combine, pro days, and Senior Bowl, Minshew spoke with all 32 NFL teams in the time leading up to the draft. The Jacksonville Jaguars ultimately selected Minshew in the sixth round, 178th overall, of the 2019 NFL Draft.
Jacksonville Jaguars
2019 season
After being drafted, Minshew spent the Jaguars' training camp in competition with Tanner Lee and Alex McGough for a chance to back up starting quarterback Nick Foles, and after both Lee and McGough were cut in August, Gardner won the job despite an unimpressive preseason, with the understanding that Foles would receive the majority of starts. When Foles fractured his left clavicle in the first quarter of the Week 1 game against the Kansas City Chiefs, however, Minshew stepped in to make his NFL debut, completing 22 of 25 passes for 275 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception in the 40–26 loss. His 13 consecutive completed passes were the most of any debuting quarterback since at least 1979, and Minshew's 88 percent pass completion was the highest of any NFL player with at least 15 pass attempts in his debut. With no timetable for Foles' return and no third quarterback, Minshew became Jacksonville's starter. After narrowly losing to the Houston Texans in Week 2, Minshew picked up his first NFL win in Week 3, completing 20 of 30 passes for 204 yards in the 20–7 victory over the Tennessee Titans. Through his first three games, Minshew's 73.8 completion percentage and 110.6 passer rating were the highest of any NFL quarterback in that same time frame.
Minshew had a 4–4 record, 2,285 yards, 13 touchdown passes, four interceptions, and a 92.8 passer rating by the time that Foles was activated from the injured reserve on November 5 to take back the starting quarterback role. Foles struggled in his return, however, with only two touchdown drives in three starts, and while facing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on December 1, he was benched at halftime in favor of Minshew. Although the Jaguars lost 28–11, unable to recoup their first-half deficit, Minshew completed 16 of 27 passes for 141 yards and successfully led the team to two scoring drives. The next day, Jaguars coach Doug Marrone announced that Minshew would start the Week 14 game against the Los Angeles Chargers. Despite losing to the Chargers 45–10, Minshew was 24 for 37 with 162 yards and one touchdown, and his one touchdown, the 15th of the year, set a Jacksonville franchise record for most passing touchdowns by a rookie quarterback. In his next game, Minshew was 17 of 29 with 201 yards and two touchdowns in a 20–16 comeback victory over the Oakland Raiders, the last game to be played in the Oakland Coliseum, and he described seeing "more middle fingers today than I have in my whole life" after steering Jacksonville towards victory. Minshew and the Jaguars closed out the season with a 38–20 win over the Indianapolis Colts, during which Minshew threw for 295 yards and three touchdowns. Appearing in 14 games for Jacksonville as a rookie, Minshew had a 6–8 record for the year, with 285 completions in 470 attempts, 3,271 passing yards, 21 touchdowns, and six interceptions. He also had 344 rushing yards in 67 carries.
2020 season
Foles was traded to the Chicago Bears in March 2020 in exchange for a fourth-round selection in the 2020 NFL Draft, paving the way for Minshew to take over as the starting quarterback in the season. Joshua Dobbs, meanwhile, was acquired from the Pittsburgh Steelers as Minshew's new backup. While defeating the Indianapolis Colts 27–20 in the first game of the season, Minshew completed 19 of 20 pass attempts for 173 yards and three touchdowns, becoming the first NFL quarterback to throw for three or more touchdowns with a pass completion rate of 95 percent or higher. Although he threw for 339 yards and three touchdowns in Week 2 against the Tennessee Titans, Minshew was also sacked twice, and the game-winning play of the 33–30 loss came on an interception by Harold Landry. His poor Week 3 performance against the Miami Dolphins, throwing 30 of 42 for 275 yards with a fumble and an interception in the 31–13 loss, led to accusations that the Jaguars were tanking their season.
During an October 11 loss to the Houston Texans in which he threw for 301 yards and two touchdowns, Minshew suffered multiple fractures and a strained ligament in his right thumb, a series of injuries through which he continued playing until Jacksonville's 39–29 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on October 25. X-ray exams after that game revealed the extent of Minshew's injuries, which helped to explain his uncharacteristically poor performance through the first half of the season. At the time, he had a 65.9 percent pass completion rate, five interceptions, and three lost fumbles. In Minshew's absence, Mike Glennon took over as Jacksonville's starting quarterback, a role that he maintained even after Minshew was activated from the injured reserve. Glennon struggled in his Week 13 start, however, and he was pulled halfway through the third quarter of the Jaguars' Week 14 game in favor of Minshew. At that point, the Jaguars were trailing the Titans 31–3, and Minshew led the only Jacksonville touchdown drive in the game. Minshew started in Week 15 against the Baltimore Ravens, throwing for 226 yards and two touchdowns in a 40–14 loss, extending Jacksonville's losing streak to 13 games. Glennon was chosen to close out the season, starting the last two games against the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts, respectively. Overall, Minshew appeared in nine games for the Jaguars during the 2020 season, recording 2,259 passing yards, 16 passing touchdowns, and five interceptions, as well as 153 rushing yards in 29 carries.
Philadelphia Eagles
2021 season
On August 28, 2021, the Jaguars traded Minshew to the Philadelphia Eagles in exchange for a conditional sixth-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft; in a corresponding move, the Eagles released quarterback Nick Mullens. Minshew made his first start of the season in Week 13, after starting quarterback Jalen Hurts was sidelined with an ankle injury. Facing the New York Jets, Minshew completed 20 of 25 passes for 242 yards and two touchdowns, lifting the Eagles to a 33–18 finish. He had a perfect 158.3 quarterback rating through the first half of the game, and tied Donovan McNabb with a 93.3 percent first-half completion rate, the highest by an Eagles quarterback in 30 years. Following that game, Minshew asked Nick Sirianni if he could become the Eagles' starting quarterback over Hurts, a request that Sirianni denied. In response, Minshew decided he was "going to do everything [he] can to put [him]self in that position at some point". Hurts' ankle injury recovered over the Eagles' subsequent bye week, and Minshew returned to the backup role for the Eagles' Week 15 game against the Washington Football Team. Minshew was asked to start again in the Eagles' regular-season finale against the rival Dallas Cowboys, giving Hurts an opportunity to rest before the 2021–22 NFL playoffs began the following week. Passing primarily to other reserve players on a roster that had been diminished by COVID-19 protocols, Minshew threw 19 of 33 for 186 yards, with two touchdowns and an interception, while the Eagles lost 51–26 to the Cowboys.
NFL career statistics
Regular season
Postseason
Records
Jacksonville Jaguars
Most passing touchdowns of any rookie (21)
Highest completion percentage in one game (88 percent, September 8, 2019)
Awards and honors
Personal life
Minshew was named after his father, Gardner Flint Minshew, a fact that most fans and sportswriters did not initially realize because the elder Minshew is often referred to by his middle name. He goes by "Minshew II" rather than "Minshew Jr." at his mother's request, as she did not want her son to be nicknamed "Junior" or "Bubba". His grandfather originally wanted Minshew to be named Beowulf, after the Old English hero, but his parents rejected the idea.
Outside of football, Minshew is known for his distinctive physical appearance and exercise habits, which have generated several nicknames. He began growing his signature Fu Manchu-style mustache at East Carolina, and it has been adopted by Minshew's fans, some of whom wear fake mustaches to his NFL games. During his tenure with Jacksonville, he also had a distinctive mullet, which he cut off after the 2020 season. This appearance awarded Minshew the nickname "Uncle Rico", based on the similarly-styled character from the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite. His decision to wear aviator sunglasses and a flight jacket before his first game at Lincoln Financial Field also drew comparisons to the film Top Gun. Minshew was also given the nickname "Jock Strap King" by Jacksonville running back Leonard Fournette, after the quarterback's propensity for exercising in nothing but the eponymous underwear. The pornographic video service CamSoda once offered Minshew a one-million-dollar endorsement deal based on his exercise habit.
While playing for Northwest Mississippi, Minshew had a cameo appearance in the Netflix documentary miniseries Last Chance U. The film featured the college football program at East Mississippi, whose defeat of Minshew and Northwest Mississippi was featured in the series.
References
External links
Philadelphia Eagles bio
Washington State Cougars bio
1996 births
Living people
American football quarterbacks
East Carolina Pirates football players
Jacksonville Jaguars players
Philadelphia Eagles players
Northwest Mississippi Rangers football players
People from Brandon, Mississippi
People from Flowood, Mississippi
Players of American football from Mississippi
Washington State Cougars football players
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The 2010 season was the Seattle Seahawks' 35th in the National Football League, their ninth playing their home games at Qwest Field and their first under head coach Pete Carroll after Jim Mora was fired on January 8, 2010. The team exceeded their win total from 2009 and won the NFC West with a 7–9 record. They became the first team in a full season to finish with a sub-.500 record and make the playoffs, a berth which was by virtue of winning the division. Their 7–9 record is the worst record for any team that made the postseason, a feat that has since been matched by the 2020 Washington Football Team. The 2010 Seahawks also became the first sub-.500 team to win a playoff game with their home win against the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints remembered as the Beast Quake game, but then had their season ended by the second-seeded Chicago Bears in the divisional round.
Statistics website Football Outsiders calculated that the 2010 Seahawks were the worst team that they had ever rated to qualify for the playoffs.
Offseason
Front office changes
General manager Tim Ruskell resigned from his position two weeks before the 2009 regular season ended. Interim GM Ruston Webster took over until the season ended, but was not retained as GM. However, Webster left the team for a similar position for the Tennessee Titans instead.
Surprisingly, the head coaching vacancy created by Mora's departure was actually filled first by the Seahawks through Pete Carroll. Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke suggested that Carroll and the GM would have a "collaborative relationship" over control of the team.
Among candidates interviewed for GM were former Tennessee Titans General Manager Floyd Reese and New York Giants scouting director Marc Ross. On January 19, 2010, the Seahawks officially signed Green Bay Packers director of football operations John Schneider as their official General Manager.
Staff changes
Following a disastrous 5–11 season in his first season with the Seahawks, Jim Mora was fired on January 8, 2010. Mora was apparently surprised and disappointed about the news, but Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke stated that the franchise was moving to a new direction to become successful.
Within days after Mora was relieved as Head Coach, the Seahawks began to interview candidates such as USC Trojans football head coach Pete Carroll, Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier and San Diego Chargers defensive coordinator Ron Rivera. Controversy aroused when news broke out that Carroll was in preliminary agreements to sign a contract as head coach and have full control of the franchise when neither Frazier or Rivera were interviewed, thus potentially breaking the Rooney Rule. However, Frazier agreed to an interview before the Seahawks signed Carroll as coach, thus fulfilling the rule. Two days later, Carroll officially became the 8th head coach in franchise history.
Within days after Carroll was hired, the rest of the coaching staff was revamped. With the exceptions of Gus Bradley and Dan Quinn, none of the coaches from Mora's tenure returned. USC Football offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates joined as the Seahawks offensive coordinator, while Alex Gibbs from the Houston Texans would serve as offensive line coach and assistant head coach. However, weeks before the start of the NFL regular season, Gibbs would suddenly retire from the position, with Carroll's former USC assistant Pat Ruel to take his spot.
Key departures
Wide receiver Nate Burleson, after a four-year stint with the Seahawks, signed with the Detroit Lions on March 5, 2010, after 24 hours of free agency. Backup quarterback Seneca Wallace, known for his versatility as a wide receiver, was sent to the Cleveland Browns on March 8, 2010 in exchange for a conditional 2011 NFL Draft pick.
Guard Rob Sims, who started regularly for the Seahawks for the past four years, was traded to the Lions in exchange for defensive end Robert Henderson and a fifth-round pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. Veteran defensive End Darryl Tapp was also traded to the Philadelphia Eagles in exchange for Chris Clemons and a fourth-round pick.
On April 13, 2010, Defensive end Patrick Kerney announced his retirement after 11 NFL seasons. Kerney made the Pro Bowl in 2007 and led the team in sacks on two occasions (2007 and 2009). On April 29, 2010, Four-time All-Pro Left Tackle Walter Jones also announced his retirement after a 13-year career during which he became a cornerstone of the Seattle Seahawks organization.
During training camp, the Seahawks continued to cut ties with many players. Former first-round pick Lawrence Jackson, who Carroll coached with at USC, was traded to the Detroit Lions for a sixth-round pick. The previous year's starters including fullback Owen Schmitt and wide receiver T. J. Houshmandzadeh were released from the team. Defensive back Josh Wilson was traded to Baltimore for a conditional fifth-round pick.
Key additions
Former San Diego Chargers quarterback Charlie Whitehurst was acquired by Seattle on March 18, 2010. Whitehurst competed for the starting job with Matt Hasselbeck. Also, the Seahawks acquired defensive ends Chris Clemons and Robert Henderson respectively from the Eagles and Lions. Wide receiver Reggie Williams, a former first-round pick with the Jacksonville Jaguars and a former Washington Huskies standout, signed with the Seahawks on April 16, 2010.
On the last day of the 2010 NFL Draft, the Seahawks acquired running back LenDale White and defensive tackle Kevin Vickerson from the Tennessee Titans. With the trade, White would have been reunited with his college coach Pete Carroll from USC, but was cut on May 28. Also, the New York Jets traded former Pro Bowler Leon Washington to Seattle.
2010 NFL Draft
After finishing the 2009 season with a record of 5–11, the Seahawks held the 6th overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. They also held the 14th overall pick as a result of a trade in the 2009 NFL Draft that gave their second-round pick 2009 to the Denver Broncos for their first-round pick in 2010. The Seahawks traded their third-round pick to the Philadelphia Eagles as part of a trade from the 2009 draft and gave up their second-round pick in the Charlie Whitehurst deal but also received another second-round pick from the San Diego Chargers
Staff
Final roster
Preseason
Schedule
Game summaries
Week 1: vs. Tennessee Titans
Week 2: vs. Green Bay Packers
Week 3: at Minnesota Vikings
Week 4: at Oakland Raiders
Regular season
Schedule
Bold indicates division opponents.
Source: 2010 NFL season results
Standings
Game summaries
Week 1: vs. San Francisco 49ers
The Seahawks began their season at home for an NFC West rivalry against the San Francisco 49ers. In the first quarter, Seattle trailed early when 49ers kicker Joe Nedney made a 23-yard field goal, which was extended in the second quarter when Nedney made another 23-yard field goal. Then, the Seahawks fought back and took the lead when quarterback Matt Hasselbeck got a 1-yard touchdown run, followed by him making a 13-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Deon Butler. In the third quarter, Seattle continued to dominate when cornerback Marcus Trufant returned an interception and ran 32 yards for a touchdown. This was followed by Hasselbeck's 3-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Deion Branch. In the fourth quarter, the Seahawks scored again when kicker Olindo Mare made a 35-yard field goal.
With the win, Seattle began the season at 1–0.
Week 2: at Denver Broncos
Coming off an easy win over the 49ers, the Seahawks flew to INVESCO Field at Mile High for an interconference duel with their former division rival, the Broncos. In the first quarter Seattle trailed early as quarterback Kyle Orton made a 13-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Eddie Royal, followed in the second quarter by running back Correll Buckhalter getting a 1-yard touchdown run. Then kicker Matt Prater made a 20-yard field goal to put the Broncos up 17–0. In the third quarter Seattle tried to cut the lead when quarterback Matt Hasselbeck completed an 11-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Ben Obomanu, but Denver scored with running back Knowshon Moreno getting a 1-yard touchdown run. In the fourth quarter Seattle fell further behind when Orton found wide receiver Demaryius Thomas on a 21-yard touchdown pass. Seattle would make the final score of the game when Hasselbeck scrambled 20 yards to the endzone for a touchdown.
With the loss, Seattle fell to 1–1.
Week 3: vs. San Diego Chargers
The Seahawks' third game was played at home ground when they played their former division rival, the San Diego Chargers. In the second quarter Seattle took the early lead when kicker Olindo Mare made a 23-yard field goal. Then quarterback Matt Hasselbeck completed a 9-yard touchdown pass to tight end John Carlson. This was followed in the third quarter by running back Leon Washington returning a kickoff 101 yards to the endzone for a touchdown. The lead was broken down with quarterback Philip Rivers getting a 3-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Malcolm Floyd, followed by Hasselbeck getting sacked by linebacker Brandon Siler in the endzone for a safety. Then kicker Nate Kaeding made a 29-yard field goal. The Seahawks increased their lead when Mare made a 23-yard field goal, but the Chargers replied and tied the game when Rivers found tight end Antonio Gates on a 12-yard touchdown pass (with a successful two-point conversion as Rivers found wide receiver Legedu Naanee). Before the clock struck zero Seattle took the winning score as running back Leon Washington returned his second kickoff of the game into the endzone running 99 yards for a touchdown. Rivers and the Chargers attempted to make a comeback with less than a minute left, but was picked off by rookie Earl Thomas to seal the win for Seattle.
With the win, Seattle improved to 2–1.
Week 4: at St. Louis Rams
The Seahawks' fourth game was played at Edward Jones Dome where they played an NFC west rivalry match against the Rams. In the first quarter the Seahawks trailed early as quarterback Sam Bradford completed a 15-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Brandon Gibson. The Seahawks cut the lead with kicker Olindo Mare nailing a 22-yard field goal, but the Rams increased their lead when kicker Josh Brown made a 30-yard field goal, followed in the 3rd quarter by Bradford completing a 21-yard touchdown pass to running back Kenneth Darby. Then Josh Brown made a 31-yard field goal to put the Seahawks further behind.
With the loss, Seattle fell to 2–2 coming into their bye week and their 10-game winning streak against the Rams was snapped.
Week 6: at Chicago Bears
Following a bye week, the Seahawks traveled to Soldier Field and face the Chicago Bears with a new weapon in running back Marshawn Lynch. Chicago quickly scored in the first quarter with a Matt Forte 6-yard run, but Matt Hasselbeck and the offense would respond quickly with a 22-yard touchdown reception by Deon Butler. Seattle would extend the lead to 14–7 with a Justin Forsett touchdown run near the beginning of the 2nd quarter, but two Chicago field goals made by Robbie Gould would bring the Bears to a one-point deficit at halftime. However, Chicago's offense was continuously hampered by the Seahawks' blitzes, roughing up Jay Cutler for 6 sacks and a safety in the 3rd quarter. Lynch would score his first touchdown as a Seahawk later in the game, extending Seattle's lead to 23–13. The Bears tried to rallied within the last few minutes of the game as Devin Hester scored on an 89-yard punt return for a touchdown (his 13th, which tied an NFL record for most punt/kick return touchdowns by a single player), but an onside kick recovered by tight end John Carlson sealed Seattle's first non-division road victory since 2007.
With the win, the Seahawks moved to 3–2.
Week 7: vs. Arizona Cardinals
Coming off their win over the Bears the Seahawks played on home ground for an NFC West rivalry match against the Cardinals. In the first quarter the Seahawks took the lead as kicker Olindo Mare got a 20-yard field goal. Followed in the second quarter by quarterback Matt Hasselbeck making a 2-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Mike Williams. The Seahawks increased their lead in the 3rd quarter with Mare nailing a 31 and a 51-yard field goal. The Cardinals replied with running back Beanie Wells getting a 2-yard touchdown run. The Seahawks continued to score with Mare hitting a 24-yard field goal, but the Cardinals responded in the fourth quarter with kicker Jay Feely getting a 24-yard field goal. The Seahawks pulled away with Mare making a 26-yard field goal.
With the win, the Seahawks improved to 4–2.
Week 8: at Oakland Raiders
Hoping to increase their winning streak the Seahawks flew to Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum where they played their former division rival, the Oakland Raiders. The Seahawks immediately trailed on a scoring rally by the Raiders with kicker Sebastian Janikowski nailing a 31-yard field goal. This was followed in the second quarter by quarterback Jason Campbell's 30-yard touchdown pass to FB Marcel Reece. Then in the third quarter Janikowski made a 36-yard field goal. Then he made a 22-yard field goal in the fourth quarter to put the Raiders up 16–0. The Seahawks struggled further with Campbell getting a 69-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey. The Seahawks would make their only score of the game with kicker Olindo Mare hitting a 47-yard field goal. However, they continued to trail as Janikowski made a 49-yard field goal, followed by running back Michael Bush making a 4-yard touchdown run.
With the loss, the Seahawks fell to 4–3.
Week 9: vs. New York Giants
The Seahawks' eighth game was an NFC duel with the Giants at home. The Giants took control with running back Ahmad Bradshaw getting a 2-yard touchdown run, followed by Eli Manning's 46-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Hakeem Nicks, followed by Bradshaw's 4-yard touchdown run. In the second quarter, quarterback Eli Manning found wide receiver Steve Smith and tight end Kevin Boss on 6 and 5-yard touchdown passes respectively. The lead was expanded by kicker Lawrence Tynes who made a 25 and a 20-yard field goal. Seattle made their only score of the game, with quarterback Charlie Whitehurst completing a 36-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Ben Obomanu.
With the loss, Seattle fell to 4–4. This also marks the first time that they lost to the Giants at home since 1981.
Week 10: at Arizona Cardinals
Hoping to rebound from their loss to the Giants the Seahawks flew to University of Phoenix Stadium for an NFC West rivalry match against the Cardinals. In the first quarter the Seahawks trailed early as running back Tim Hightower got a 2-yard touchdown run. They replied with running back Marshawn Lynch getting a 1-yard touchdown run. They took the lead with kicker Olindo Mare getting a 41-yard field goal, but the Cardinals replied with kicker Jay Feely nailing a 23-yard field goal. They took control with quarterback Matt Hasselbeck completing a 63-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Deon Butler. This was followed in the third quarter by a 34, 19 and 23-yard field goal from Mare. In the fourth quarter Mare got another 19-yard field goal to put the Seahawks up 29–10. The Cardinals responded with quarterback Derek Anderson making a 2-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Early Doucet (with a successful two-point conversion as Anderson found wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald), but the Seahawks put the game away with running back Justin Forsett getting a 4-yard touchdown run.
With the win, not only did the Seahawks improve to 5–4, but they swept the Cardinals for the first time since 2005.
Week 11: at New Orleans Saints
The Seahawks' tenth game was an NFC duel with the Saints. In the first quarter the Seahawks took the lead as kicker Olindo Mare hit a 20-yard field goal; but the Saints pulled ahead after running back Chris Ivory got a 1-yard touchdown run. The lead narrowed in the second quarter by Mare getting a 43-yard field goal, but the Seahawks fell further behind when quarterback Drew Brees made a 23 and a 3-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Marques Colston and wide receiver Robert Meachem respectively. The Seahawks cut the lead again after quarterback Matt Hasselbeck got a 2-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Ben Obomanu; but the Saints replied with Brees throwing a 22-yard touchdown pass to Colston. The Seahawks tried to cut the lead with Mare hitting a 43-yard field goal. The lead extended in the third quarter with Brees finding Meachem again on a 32-yard touchdown pass. The Seahawks made the only score of the fourth quarter with Mare making a 20-yard field goal; however, the Saints' defense closed off any more chances.
With the loss, Seattle fell to 5–5.
Week 12: vs. Kansas City Chiefs
Hoping to rebound from their loss to the Saints the Seahawks played on home ground where they played their former division rival, the Kansas City Chiefs. In the first quarter, the Seahawks trailed early with quarterback Matt Cassel getting a 7-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Dwayne Bowe. They responded after free safety Earl Thomas returned a blocked punt 10 yards for a touchdown. They fell behind as Shaun Smith got a 1-yard touchdown run, followed by Cassel finding Bowe again on a 36-yard touchdown pass. The Seahawks cut the lead when kicker Olindo Mare got a 43-yard field goal, followed by quarterback Matt Hasselbeck getting a 13-yard touchdown pass to tight end Chris Baker. The struggled further with running back Jamaal Charles getting a 3-yard touchdown run, followed by Cassel throwing to Bowe on a 9-yard touchdown pass. The Seahawks responded as Hasselbeck completed an 87-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Ben Obomanu, but the Chiefs increased their lead as Cassel got a 6-yard touchdown pass to tight end Tony Moeaki.
With the loss, Seattle fell to 5–6.
Week 13: vs. Carolina Panthers
Hoping to rebound from their loss to the Chiefs the Seahawks played on home ground for an NFC duel with the Panthers. In the first quarter the Seahawks trailed early as running back Mike Goodson got a 6-yard touchdown run, followed by running back Jonathan Stewart getting a 3-yard touchdown run. They commanded the rest of the game with kicker Olindo Mare getting a 24-yard field goal, followed by running back Marshawn Lynch getting a 1-yard touchdown run, then with Lofa Tatupu returning an interception 26 yards for a touchdown. The lead was extended with Lynch getting touchdown runs of 1 yard and 22 yards.
With the win, not only did the Seahawks improve to 6–6, they surpassed their victory mark of the last 2 seasons.
Week 14: at San Francisco 49ers
After their win over the Panthers the Seahawks flew to Candlestick Park for an NFC West rivalry match against the 49ers. The Seahawks trailed early with quarterback Alex Smith completing a 42-yard touchdown pass to tight end Vernon Davis, but they replied with quarterback Matt Hasselbeck throwing an 11-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Ruvell Martin. They fell further behind when kicker Jeff Reed hit a 33 and a 44-yard field goal, followed by Smith completing a 15 and a 62-yard touchdown pass to Josh Morgan and Brian Westbrook respectively. This was followed by Reed making a 22-yard field goal, and in the third quarter with free safety Dashon Goldson returning an interception 39 yards for a touchdown. After that, Reed kicked a 36-yard field goal to put the 49ers up 40–7. The Seahawks tried to cut the lead down but only came away with running back Leon Washington returning the kickoff 92 yards for a touchdown, and in the fourth quarter with quarterback Matt Hasselbeck getting a 2-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Deon Butler.
With the loss, Seattle fell to 6–7.
Week 15: vs. Atlanta Falcons
Hoping to rebound from their loss to the 49ers the Seahawks played on home ground for an NFC duel with the Falcons. In the first quarter the Seahawks took the lead with running back Marshawn Lynch getting a 1-yard touchdown run, with the Falcons replying with quarterback Matt Ryan making a 3-yard touchdown pass to fullback Jason Snelling. The Seahawks trailed slightly with kicker Matt Bryant hitting a 27-yard field goal, but managed to tie the game with kicker Olindo Mare nailing a 38-yard field goal. They struggled to keep up after Ryan completed a 24-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Michael Jenkins, followed by quarterback Matt Hasselbeck losing the ball in the endzone which was picked up by defensive tackle Jonathan Babineaux for a touchdown. This was followed by Bryant getting a 25-yard field goal, and then with Ryan getting a 5-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Roddy White. The Seahawks tried to cut the lead, but only came away with quarterback Charlie Whitehurst scrambling a yard for a touchdown.
With the loss, Seattle fell to 6–8.
Week 16: at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Hoping to rebound from their loss to the Falcons the Seahawks flew to Raymond James Stadium for an NFC duel with the Buccaneers. The Seahawks took the early lead with quarterback Matt Hasselbeck scrambling 1 yard for a touchdown, but failed to maintain this lead with kicker Connor Barth hitting a 46-yard field goal, followed by quarterback Josh Freeman completing a 10 and a 20-yard touchdown pass to tight end Kellen Winslow and to wide receiver Mike Williams. The Seahawks fell further behind when Freeman connected with Winslow and Williams again on a 21 and a 7-yard touchdown pass. The Seahawks tried to come back with running back Leon Washington getting a 16-yard touchdown run (with a successful two-point conversion as quarterback Charlie Whitehurst connected with wide receiver Ben Obomanu), but struggled to keep up as Freeman made a 2-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Maurice Stovall.
With the loss, Seattle fell to 6–9.
Week 17: vs. St. Louis Rams
Hoping to end their season on a positive note, the Seahawks went home for a Week 17 NFC West rematch with the St. Louis Rams, with the division title on the line. Seattle delivered the game's opening strike in the first quarter as quarterback Charlie Whitehurst found wide receiver Mike Williams on a 4-yard touchdown pass. The Rams answered in the second quarter with former Seahawks kicker Josh Brown making a 32-yard field goal.
St. Louis continued to pound away at Seattle's lead in the third quarter as Brown got a 27-yard field goal, but the Seahawks replied with a 31-yard field goal from kicker Olindo Mare. Afterwards, Seattle pulled away in the fourth quarter with Mare's 38-yard and 34-yard field goals.
With the win, not only did the Seahawks finish the regular season at 7–9, but they also won the NFC West for the first time since 2007 and secured the NFC's #4 seed. Also, Seattle became the first team in NFL history to make the playoffs in a non-strike season and become division champions with a losing record.
Postseason
Seattle entered the postseason as the #4 seed in the NFC.
Schedule
Game summaries
NFC Wild Card Playoff: vs. #5 New Orleans Saints
Entering the postseason as the NFC's #4 seed, the Seahawks began their playoff run at home in the NFC Wild Card Round against the #5 New Orleans Saints in a rematch of their Week 11 duel. Seattle trailed early in the first quarter as Saints kicker Garrett Hartley got a 26-yard field goal, followed by quarterback Drew Brees completing a 1-yard touchdown pass to fullback Heath Evans. The Seahawks answered with quarterback Matt Hasselbeck finding tight end John Carlson on an 11-yard touchdown pass. New Orleans responded in the second quarter with running back Julius Jones getting a 5-yard touchdown run, but Seattle took the lead with Hasselbeck connecting with Carlson again on a 7-yard touchdown pass, Mare booting a 29-yard field goal and Hasselbeck hooking up with wide receiver Brandon Stokley on a 45-yard touchdown pass. The Saints closed out the half with Hartley getting a 22-yard field goal.
The Seahawks added onto their lead in the third quarter as Hasselbeck found wide receiver Mike Williams on a 38-yard touchdown pass, followed by a 39-yard field goal from Mare. New Orleans ate away at their deficit in the fourth quarter with Jones' 4-yard touchdown run and Hartley's 21-yard field goal, but Seattle came right back with a 67-yard touchdown run from running back Marshawn Lynch. The Saints tried to rally with Brees completing a 6-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Devery Henderson (with a failed two-point conversion), but a failed onside kick helped preserve Seattle's victory.
With the win, not only did the Seahawks improve their overall record to 8–9, but they became the first sub-.500 team in NFL history to win a playoff game as well as dethroning the defending world champion Saints from further playoff contention.
It was later determined that crowd activity and noise was so great, specifically during Marshawn Lynch's game-clinching touchdown run (commonly referred to as the Beast Quake), that a nearby seismic monitoring station registered a small tremor located at Qwest Field. With the win, the Seahawks had a 6–3 record at home for the season.
NFC Divisional Playoff: at #2 Chicago Bears
Coming off their win over the Saints, the Seahawks flew to Soldier Field for the NFC Divisional Round against the #2 Chicago Bears, in a rematch of their Week 6 matchup. Seattle trailed early in the first quarter as Bear quarterback Jay Cutler completed a 58-yard touchdown pass to tight end Greg Olsen, followed by running back Chester Taylor getting a 1-yard touchdown run. Chicago added onto their lead in the second quarter as Cutler got a 6-yard touchdown run.
The Bears continued their dominating day in the third quarter as Cutler got a 9-yard touchdown run. Seattle finally answered with a 30-yard field goal from kicker Olindo Mare. The Seahawks tried to rally in the fourth quarter as quarterback Matt Hasselbeck found wide receiver Mike Williams on a 38-yard touchdown pass, but Chicago pulled away with Cutler completing a 39-yard touchdown pass to tight end Kellen Davis. Seattle continued to try to rally as Hasselbeck connected with Williams again on a 3-yard touchdown pass, followed by a 9-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Brandon Stokley, but the Bears held on to preserve the win.
With the loss, the Seahawks' season came to an end with an overall record at 8–10.
References
Seattle Seahawks
NFC West championship seasons
Seattle Seahawks seasons
Seattle Seahawks
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In computer programming, lazy initialization is the tactic of delaying the creation of an object, the calculation of a value, or some other expensive process until the first time it is needed. It is a kind of lazy evaluation that refers specifically to the instantiation of objects or other resources.
This is typically accomplished by augmenting an accessor method (or property getter) to check whether a private member, acting as a cache, has already been initialized. If it has, it is returned straight away. If not, a new instance is created, placed into the member variable, and returned to the caller just-in-time for its first use.
If objects have properties that are rarely used, this can improve startup speed. Mean average program performance may be slightly worse in terms of memory (for the condition variables) and execution cycles (to check them), but the impact of object instantiation is spread in time ("amortized") rather than concentrated in the startup phase of a system, and thus median response times can be greatly improved.
In multithreaded code, access to lazy-initialized objects/state must be synchronized to guard against race conditions.
The "lazy factory"
In a software design pattern view, lazy initialization is often used together with a factory method pattern. This combines three ideas:
Using a factory method to create instances of a class (factory method pattern)
Storing the instances in a map, and returning the same instance to each request for an instance with same parameters (multiton pattern)
Using lazy initialization to instantiate the object the first time it is requested (lazy initialization pattern)
Examples
ActionScript 3
The following is an example of a class with lazy initialization implemented in ActionScript:
package examples.lazyinstantiation
{
public class Fruit
{
private var _typeName:String;
private static var instancesByTypeName:Dictionary = new Dictionary();
public function Fruit(typeName:String):void
{
this._typeName = typeName;
}
public function get typeName():String
{
return _typeName;
}
public static function getFruitByTypeName(typeName:String):Fruit
{
return instancesByTypeName[typeName] ||= new Fruit(typeName);
}
public static function printCurrentTypes():void
{
for each (var fruit:Fruit in instancesByTypeName)
{
// iterates through each value
trace(fruit.typeName);
}
}
}
}
Basic Usage:
package
{
import examples.lazyinstantiation;
public class Main
{
public function Main():void
{
Fruit.getFruitByTypeName("Banana");
Fruit.printCurrentTypes();
Fruit.getFruitByTypeName("Apple");
Fruit.printCurrentTypes();
Fruit.getFruitByTypeName("Banana");
Fruit.printCurrentTypes();
}
}
}
C
In C, lazy evaluation would normally be implemented inside a single function, or a single source file, using static variables.
In a function:
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stddef.h>
#include <stdio.h>
struct fruit {
char *name;
struct fruit *next;
int number;
/* Other members */
};
struct fruit *get_fruit(char *name) {
static struct fruit *fruit_list;
static int seq;
struct fruit *f;
for (f = fruit_list; f; f = f->next)
if (0 == strcmp(name, f->name))
return f;
if (!(f = malloc(sizeof(struct fruit))))
return NULL;
if (!(f->name = strdup(name))) {
free(f);
return NULL;
}
f->number = ++seq;
f->next = fruit_list;
fruit_list = f;
return f;
}
/* Example code */
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
int i;
struct fruit *f;
if (argc < 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: fruits fruit-name [...]\n");
exit(1);
}
for (i = 1; i < argc; i++) {
if ((f = get_fruit(argv[i]))) {
printf("Fruit %s: number %d\n", argv[i], f->number);
}
}
return 0;
}
Using a single source file instead allows the state to be shared between multiple functions, while still hiding it from non-related functions.
fruit.h:
#ifndef _FRUIT_INCLUDED_
#define _FRUIT_INCLUDED_
struct fruit {
char *name;
struct fruit *next;
int number;
/* Other members */
};
struct fruit *get_fruit(char *name);
void print_fruit_list(FILE *file);
#endif /* _FRUIT_INCLUDED_ */
fruit.c:
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stddef.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include "fruit.h"
static struct fruit *fruit_list;
static int seq;
struct fruit *get_fruit(char *name) {
struct fruit *f;
for (f = fruit_list; f; f = f->next)
if (0 == strcmp(name, f->name))
return f;
if (!(f = malloc(sizeof(struct fruit))))
return NULL;
if (!(f->name = strdup(name))) {
free(f);
return NULL;
}
f->number = ++seq;
f->next = fruit_list;
fruit_list = f;
return f;
}
void print_fruit_list(FILE *file) {
struct fruit *f;
for (f = fruit_list; f; f = f->next)
fprintf(file, "%4d %s\n", f->number, f->name);
}
main.c:
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include "fruit.h"
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
int i;
struct fruit *f;
if (argc < 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: fruits fruit-name [...]\n");
exit(1);
}
for (i = 1; i < argc; i++) {
if ((f = get_fruit(argv[i]))) {
printf("Fruit %s: number %d\n", argv[i], f->number);
}
}
printf("The following fruits have been generated:\n");
print_fruit_list(stdout);
return 0;
}
C#
In .NET Framework 4.0 Microsoft has included a Lazy class that can be used to do lazy loading.
Below is some dummy code that does lazy loading of Class Fruit
var lazyFruit = new Lazy<Fruit>();
Fruit fruit = lazyFruit.Value;
Here is a dummy example in C#.
The Fruit class itself doesn't do anything here, The class variable _typesDictionary is a Dictionary/Map used to store Fruit instances by typeName.
using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
public class Fruit
{
private string _typeName;
private static IDictionary<string, Fruit> _typesDictionary = new Dictionary<string, Fruit>();
private Fruit(String typeName)
{
this._typeName = typeName;
}
public static Fruit GetFruitByTypeName(string type)
{
Fruit fruit;
if (!_typesDictionary.TryGetValue(type, out fruit))
{
// Lazy initialization
fruit = new Fruit(type);
_typesDictionary.Add(type, fruit);
}
return fruit;
}
public static void ShowAll()
{
if (_typesDictionary.Count > 0)
{
Console.WriteLine("Number of instances made = {0}", _typesDictionary.Count);
foreach (KeyValuePair<string, Fruit> kvp in _typesDictionary)
{
Console.WriteLine(kvp.Key);
}
Console.WriteLine();
}
}
public Fruit()
{
// required so the sample compiles
}
}
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Fruit.GetFruitByTypeName("Banana");
Fruit.ShowAll();
Fruit.GetFruitByTypeName("Apple");
Fruit.ShowAll();
// returns pre-existing instance from first
// time Fruit with "Banana" was created
Fruit.GetFruitByTypeName("Banana");
Fruit.ShowAll();
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
A fairly straightforward 'fill-in-the-blanks' example of a Lazy Initialization design pattern, except that this uses an enumeration for the type
namespace DesignPatterns.LazyInitialization;
public class LazyFactoryObject
{
//internal collection of items
//IDictionaery makes sure they are unique
private IDictionary<LazyObjectSize, LazyObject> _LazyObjectList =
new Dictionary<LazyObjectSize, LazyObject>();
//enum for passing name of size required
//avoids passing strings and is part of LazyObject ahead
public enum LazyObjectSize
{
None,
Small,
Big,
Bigger,
Huge
}
//standard type of object that will be constructed
public struct LazyObject
{
public LazyObjectSize Size;
public IList<int> Result;
}
//takes size and create 'expensive' list
private IList<int> Result(LazyObjectSize size)
{
IList<int> result = null;
switch (size)
{
case LazyObjectSize.Small:
result = CreateSomeExpensiveList(1, 100);
break;
case LazyObjectSize.Big:
result = CreateSomeExpensiveList(1, 1000);
break;
case LazyObjectSize.Bigger:
result = CreateSomeExpensiveList(1, 10000);
break;
case LazyObjectSize.Huge:
result = CreateSomeExpensiveList(1, 100000);
break;
case LazyObjectSize.None:
result = null;
break;
default:
result = null;
break;
}
return result;
}
//not an expensive item to create, but you get the point
//delays creation of some expensive object until needed
private IList<int> CreateSomeExpensiveList(int start, int end)
{
IList<int> result = new List<int>();
for (int counter = 0; counter < (end - start); counter++)
{
result.Add(start + counter);
}
return result;
}
public LazyFactoryObject()
{
//empty constructor
}
public LazyObject GetLazyFactoryObject(LazyObjectSize size)
{
//yes, i know it is illiterate and inaccurate
LazyObject noGoodSomeOne;
//retrieves LazyObjectSize from list via out, else creates one and adds it to list
if (!_LazyObjectList.TryGetValue(size, out noGoodSomeOne))
{
noGoodSomeOne = new LazyObject();
noGoodSomeOne.Size = size;
noGoodSomeOne.Result = this.Result(size);
_LazyObjectList.Add(size, noGoodSomeOne);
}
return noGoodSomeOne;
}
}
C++
Here is an example in C++.
#include <iostream>
#include <map>
#include <string>
class Fruit {
public:
static Fruit* GetFruit(const std::string& type);
static void PrintCurrentTypes();
private:
// Note: constructor private forcing one to use static |GetFruit|.
Fruit(const std::string& type) : type_(type) {}
static std::map<std::string, Fruit*> types;
std::string type_;
};
// static
std::map<std::string, Fruit*> Fruit::types;
// Lazy Factory method, gets the |Fruit| instance associated with a certain
// |type|. Creates new ones as needed.
Fruit* Fruit::GetFruit(const std::string& type) {
auto [it, inserted] = types.emplace(type, nullptr);
if (inserted) {
it->second = new Fruit(type);
}
return it->second;
}
// For example purposes to see pattern in action.
void Fruit::PrintCurrentTypes() {
std::cout << "Number of instances made = " << types.size() << std::endl;
for (const auto& [type, fruit] : types) {
std::cout << type << std::endl;
}
std::cout << std::endl;
}
int main() {
Fruit::GetFruit("Banana");
Fruit::PrintCurrentTypes();
Fruit::GetFruit("Apple");
Fruit::PrintCurrentTypes();
// Returns pre-existing instance from first time |Fruit| with "Banana" was
// created.
Fruit::GetFruit("Banana");
Fruit::PrintCurrentTypes();
}
// OUTPUT:
//
// Number of instances made = 1
// Banana
//
// Number of instances made = 2
// Apple
// Banana
//
// Number of instances made = 2
// Apple
// Banana
//
Crystal
class Fruit
private getter type : String
@@types = {} of String => Fruit
def initialize(@type)
end
def self.get_fruit_by_type(type : String)
@@types[type] ||= Fruit.new(type)
end
def self.show_all
puts "Number of instances made: #{@@types.size}"
@@types.each do |type, fruit|
puts "#{type}"
end
puts
end
def self.size
@@types.size
end
end
Fruit.get_fruit_by_type("Banana")
Fruit.show_all
Fruit.get_fruit_by_type("Apple")
Fruit.show_all
Fruit.get_fruit_by_type("Banana")
Fruit.show_all
Output:
Number of instances made: 1
Banana
Number of instances made: 2
Banana
Apple
Number of instances made: 2
Banana
Apple
Haxe
Here is an example in Haxeclass Fruit {
private static var _instances = new Map<String, Fruit>();
public var name(default, null):String;
public function new(name:String) {
this.name = name;
}
public static function getFruitByName(name:String):Fruit {
if (!_instances.exists(name)) {
_instances.set(name, new Fruit(name));
}
return _instances.get(name);
}
public static function printAllTypes() {
trace([for(key in _instances.keys()) key]);
}
}Usageclass Test {
public static function main () {
var banana = Fruit.getFruitByName("Banana");
var apple = Fruit.getFruitByName("Apple");
var banana2 = Fruit.getFruitByName("Banana");
trace(banana == banana2); // true. same banana
Fruit.printAllTypes(); // ["Banana","Apple"]
}
}
Java
Here is an example in Java.
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Map.Entry;
public class Program {
/**
* @param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
Fruit.getFruitByTypeName(FruitType.banana);
Fruit.showAll();
Fruit.getFruitByTypeName(FruitType.apple);
Fruit.showAll();
Fruit.getFruitByTypeName(FruitType.banana);
Fruit.showAll();
}
}
enum FruitType {
none,
apple,
banana,
}
class Fruit {
private static Map<FruitType, Fruit> types = new HashMap<>();
/**
* Using a private constructor to force the use of the factory method.
* @param type
*/
private Fruit(FruitType type) {
}
/**
* Lazy Factory method, gets the Fruit instance associated with a certain
* type. Instantiates new ones as needed.
* @param type Any allowed fruit type, e.g. APPLE
* @return The Fruit instance associated with that type.
*/
public static Fruit getFruitByTypeName(FruitType type) {
Fruit fruit;
// This has concurrency issues. Here the read to types is not synchronized,
// so types.put and types.containsKey might be called at the same time.
// Don't be surprised if the data is corrupted.
if (!types.containsKey(type)) {
// Lazy initialisation
fruit = new Fruit(type);
types.put(type, fruit);
} else {
// OK, it's available currently
fruit = types.get(type);
}
return fruit;
}
/**
* Lazy Factory method, gets the Fruit instance associated with a certain
* type. Instantiates new ones as needed. Uses double-checked locking
* pattern for using in highly concurrent environments.
* @param type Any allowed fruit type, e.g. APPLE
* @return The Fruit instance associated with that type.
*/
public static Fruit getFruitByTypeNameHighConcurrentVersion(FruitType type) {
if (!types.containsKey(type)) {
synchronized (types) {
// Check again, after having acquired the lock to make sure
// the instance was not created meanwhile by another thread
if (!types.containsKey(type)) {
// Lazy initialisation
types.put(type, new Fruit(type));
}
}
}
return types.get(type);
}
/**
* Displays all entered fruits.
*/
public static void showAll() {
if (types.size() > 0) {
System.out.println("Number of instances made = " + types.size());
for (Entry<FruitType, Fruit> entry : types.entrySet()) {
String fruit = entry.getKey().toString();
fruit = Character.toUpperCase(fruit.charAt(0)) + fruit.substring(1);
System.out.println(fruit);
}
System.out.println();
}
}
}
Output
Number of instances made = 1
Banana
Number of instances made = 2
Banana
Apple
Number of instances made = 2
Banana
Apple
JavaScript
Here is an example in JavaScript.
var Fruit = (function() {
var types = {};
function Fruit() {};
// count own properties in object
function count(obj) {
return Object.keys(obj).length;
}
var _static = {
getFruit: function(type) {
if (typeof types[type] == 'undefined') {
types[type] = new Fruit;
}
return types[type];
},
printCurrentTypes: function () {
console.log('Number of instances made: ' + count(types));
for (var type in types) {
console.log(type);
}
}
};
return _static;
})();
Fruit.getFruit('Apple');
Fruit.printCurrentTypes();
Fruit.getFruit('Banana');
Fruit.printCurrentTypes();
Fruit.getFruit('Apple');
Fruit.printCurrentTypes();
Output
Number of instances made: 1
Apple
Number of instances made: 2
Apple
Banana
Number of instances made: 2
Apple
Banana
PHP
Here is an example of lazy initialization in PHP 7.4:
<?php
header('Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8');
class Fruit
{
private string $type;
private static array $types = array();
private function __construct(string $type)
{
$this->type = $type;
}
public static function getFruit(string $type)
{
// Lazy initialization takes place here
if (!isset(self::types[$type])) {
self::types[$type] = new Fruit($type);
}
return self::types[$type];
}
public static function printCurrentTypes(): void
{
echo 'Number of instances made: ' . count(self::types) . "\n";
foreach (array_keys(self::types) as $key) {
echo "$key\n";
}
echo "\n";
}
}
Fruit::getFruit('Apple');
Fruit::printCurrentTypes();
Fruit::getFruit('Banana');
Fruit::printCurrentTypes();
Fruit::getFruit('Apple');
Fruit::printCurrentTypes();
/*
OUTPUT:
Number of instances made: 1
Apple
Number of instances made: 2
Apple
Banana
Number of instances made: 2
Apple
Banana
*/
Python
Here is an example in Python.
class Fruit:
def __init__(self, item: str) -> None:
self.item = item
class Fruits:
def __init__(self) -> None:
self.items = {}
def get_fruit(self, item: str) -> Fruit:
if item not in self.items:
self.items[item] = Fruit(item)
return self.items[item]
if __name__ == "__main__":
fruits = Fruits()
print(fruits.get_fruit("Apple"))
print(fruits.get_fruit("Lime"))
Ruby
Here is an example in Ruby, of lazily initializing an authentication token from a remote service like Google. The way that @auth_token is cached is also an example of memoization.
require 'net/http'
class Blogger
def auth_token
@auth_token ||=
(res = Net::HTTP.post_form(uri, params)) &&
get_token_from_http_response(res)
end
# get_token_from_http_response, uri and params are defined later in the class
end
b = Blogger.new
b.instance_variable_get(:@auth_token) # returns nil
b.auth_token # returns token
b.instance_variable_get(:@auth_token) # returns token
Scala
Scala has built-in support for lazy variable initiation.
scala> val x = { println("Hello"); 99 }
Hello
x: Int = 99
scala> lazy val y = { println("Hello!!"); 31 }
y: Int = <lazy>
scala> y
Hello!!
res2: Int = 31
scala> y
res3: Int = 31
Smalltalk
Here is an example in Smalltalk, of a typical accessor method to return the value of a variable using lazy initialization.
height
^height ifNil: [height := 2.0].
The 'non-lazy' alternative is to use an initialization method that is run when the object is created and then use a simpler accessor method to fetch the value.
initialize
height := 2.0
height
^height
Note that lazy initialization can also be used in non-object-oriented languages.
Theoretical computer science
In the field of theoretical computer science, lazy initialization (also called a lazy array) is a technique to design data structures that can work with memory that does not need to be initialized. Specifically, assume that we have access to a table T of n uninitialized memory cells (numbered from 1 to n), and want to assign m cells of this array, e.g., we want to assign T[ki] := vi for pairs (k1, v1), ..., (km, vm) with all ki being different. The lazy initialization technique allows us to do this in just O(m) operations, rather than spending O(m+n) operations to first initialize all array cells. The technique is simply to allocate a table V storing the pairs (ki, vi) in some arbitrary order, and to write for each i in the cell T[ki] the position in V where key ki is stored, leaving the other cells of T uninitialized. This can be used to handle queries in the following fashion: when we look up cell T[k] for some k, we can check if k is in the range {1, ..., m}: if it is not, then T[k] is uninitialized. Otherwise, we check V[T[k]], and verify that the first component of this pair is equal to k. If it is not, then T[k] is uninitialized (and just happened by accident to fall in the range {1, ..., m}). Otherwise, we know that T[k] is indeed one of the initialized cells, and the corresponding value is the second component of the pair.
See also
Double-checked locking
Lazy loading
Proxy pattern
Singleton pattern
References
External links
Article "Java Tip 67: Lazy instantiation - Balancing performance and resource usage" by Philip Bishop and Nigel Warren
Java code examples
Use Lazy Initialization to Conserve Resources
Description from the Portland Pattern Repository
Lazy Initialization of Application Server Services
Lazy Inheritance in JavaScript
Lazy Inheritance in C#
Software design patterns
Articles with example Java code
| 6,334 |
doc-en-12475_0
|
The 1999 Manitoba general election was held on September 21, 1999 to elect Members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Manitoba, Canada.
The New Democratic Party (NDP) was returned to government after sitting in opposition since the 1988 election. The NDP won 32 seats, against 24 for the Progressive Conservative Party. The Manitoba Liberal Party won one seat. The Manitoba PC Party declined in popularity due to unpopular budget cuts on the healthcare system, social programs, and civil servants. The budget cuts on Public Service employees resulted in "Filmon Fridays" where civil servants had to take 10 unpaid days off each year. A vote splitting scandal has also hurt the Manitoba PC Party's reputation when the Independent Native Voice Party was claimed to be funded by the PC Caucus in attempt to take away votes from the NDP during the 1995 election.
Results
|- bgcolor=CCCCCC
!rowspan="2" colspan="2" align=left|Party
!rowspan="2" align=left|Party leader
!rowspan="2"|Candidates
!colspan="4" align=center|Seats
!colspan="3" align=center|Popular vote
|- bgcolor=CCCCCC
|align="center"|1995
|align="center"|Dissol.
|align="center"|1999
|align="center"|+ / —
|align="center"|#
|align="center"|%
|align="center"|Change
|align=left|New Democratic
|align=left|Gary Doer
|align="right"|57
|align="right"|23
|align="right"|23
|align="right"|32
|align="right"|+9
|align="right"|219,689
|align="right"|44.51%
|align="right"|+11.70%
|align=left|Progressive Conservative
|align=left|Gary Filmon
|align="right"|57
|align="right"|31
|align="right"|31
|align="right"|24
|align="right"|–7
|align="right"|201,562
|align="right"|40.84%
|align="right"|-2.03%
|align=left|Liberal
|align=left|Jon Gerrard
|align="right"|50
|align="right"|3
|align="right"|2
|align="right"|1
|align="right"|-2
|align="right"|66,111
|align="right"|13.40%
|align="right"|-10.33%
|align=left|Manitoba Party
|align=left|Roger Woloshyn
|align="right"|12
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|—
|align="right"|2,869
|align="right"|0.58%
|align="right"|—
|align=left|Markus Buchart
|align="right"|6
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|—
|align="right"|973
|align="right"|0.20%
|align="right"|—
|align=left|Dennis Rice
|align="right"|6
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|—
|align="right"|658
|align="right"|0.13%
|align="right"|+0.01%
|align=left|Darrell Rankin
|align="right"|6
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|—
|align="right"|446
|align="right"|0.09%
|align="right"|
|colspan=2 align=left|Independents and no affiliation
|align="right"|4
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|0
|align="right"|—
|align="right"|1,226
|align="right"|0.25%
|align="right"|—
|align=left colspan="4"|Vacant
|align="right"|1
|align="center" colspan="5"|
|-
|align=left colspan="3"|Total Valid Votes
| align="right"|198
| align="right"|57
| align="right"|57
| align="right"|57
| align="right"|—
| align="right"|493,534
| align="right"|68.11%
| align="right"|
|-
|align=left colspan="8"|Registered Voters
|align="right"|729,188
|align="center" colspan="5"|
|}
Candidates by riding
Northern Manitoba/Parkland
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Dauphin-Roblin
||
|Stan Struthers 5,596 (55.67%)
|
|Lorne Boguski 4,001 (39.80%)
|
|
|
|
|
|Doug McPhee (Manitoba Party) 455 (4.53%)
||
|Stan Struthers
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Flin Flon
||
|Gerard Jennissen 3,026 (64.91%)
|
|Tom Therien 1,368 (29.34%)
|
|
|
|
|
|Phillip Ng (Independent) 268 (5.75%)
||
|Gerrard Jennissen
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Rupertsland
||
|Eric Robinson 2,007 (59.15%)
|
|David Harper 678 (19.98%)
|
|Darcy Wood 708 (20.87%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Eric Robinson
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Swan River
||
|Rosann Wowchuk 4,931 (54.97%)
|
|Maxine Plesiuk 3,482 (38.81%)
|
|
|
|
|
|Wayne Klekta (Manitoba Party) 558 (6.22%)
||
|Rosann Wowchuk
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|The Pas
||
|Oscar Lathlin 2,952 (46.85%)
|
|Ron Evans 2,737 (43.44%)
|
|Don Sandberg 612 (9.71%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Oscar Lathlin
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Thompson
||
|Steve Ashton 3,793 (70.99%)
|
|Cecil Thorne 1,306 (24.44%)
|
|Pascal Bighetty 244 (4.57%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Steve Ashton
|}
Westman
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Arthur-Virden
|
|Perry Kalynuk 3,063 (35.79%)
||
|Larry Maguire 4,215 (49.24%)
|
|Bob Brigden 1,281 (14.97%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Larry Maguire
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Brandon East
||
|Drew Caldwell4,840 (61.28%)
|
|Marty Snelling2,080 (26.34%)
|
|Peter Logan453 (5.74%)
|
|
|
|Don Jessiman (Ind.)525 (6.65%)
||
|Leonard Evans
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Brandon West
||
|Scott Smith4,898 (49.26%)
|
|James McCrae4,546 (45.72%)
|
|Lisa Roy407 (4.09%)
|
|
|
|Lisa Gallagher (Communist) 92 (0.93%)
||
|James McCrae
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Minnedosa
|
|Harvey Paterson 2,841 (37.72%)
||
|Harold Gilleshammer 3,744 (49.71%)
|
|Gordon Powell 578 (7.67%)
|
|
|
|Brion Pollon (Manitoba Party) 369 (4.90%)
||
|Harold Gilleshammer
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Russell
|
|Vince Lelond 3,802 (46.37%)
||
|Len Derkach 4,397 (53.63%)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|New riding
|}
Central Manitoba
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Carman
|
|Diane Beresford 1,519 (20.23%)
||
|Denis Rocan 3,698 (49.25%)
|
|Raymond Le Neal 2,291 (30.51%)
|
|
|
|
||
|New riding
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Gimli
|
|Fran Fredrickson 5,086 (43.87%)
||
|Ed Helwer 5,488 (47.34%)
|
|Pat Carroll 1,019 (8.79%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Ed Helwer
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Interlake
||
|Tom Nevakshonoff 3,809 (48.59%)
|
|Betty Green 3,260 (41.59%)
|
|Margaret Swan 770 (9.82%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Tom Nevakshonoff
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Lakeside
|
|Paul Pododworny 2,785 (30.68%)
||
|Harry Enns 4,426 (48.75%)
|
|Dave Harcus 1,646 (18.13%)
|
|
|
|Marcel Van De Kerckhove (Manitoba Party) 222 (2.45%)
||
|Harry Enns
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Morris
|
|Paul Hagen 1,796 (20.51%)
||
|Frank Pitura 4,673 (53.38%)
|
|Herm Martens 2,179 (24.89%)
|
|
|
|Dennis Rice (Libertarian) 107 (1.22%)
||
|Frank Pitura
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Pembina
|
|Celso Arévalo 1,120 (16.08%)
||
|Peter Dyck 4,808 (69.01%)
|
|Marilyn Skubovious 1,039 (14.91%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Peter Dyck
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Portage la Prairie
|
|Connie Gretsinger 2,769 (37.06%)
||
|David Faurschou3,476 (46.52%)
|
|Dave Cook1,116 (14.94%)
|
|
|
|Gary Bergen (Libertarian)111 (1.49%)
||
|David Faurschou
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Selkirk
||
|Greg Dewar 5,376 (54.35%)
|
|Barry Uskiw 3,353 (33.90%)
|
|Joe Smolinski 1,162 (11.75%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Greg Dewar
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Ste. Rose
|
|Louise Wilson 3,293 (42.46%)
||
|Glen Cummings 3,871 (49.92%)
|
|Fred Juskowiak 591 (7.62%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Glen Cummings†
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Turtle Mountain
|
|Janet Brady 1,902 (26.47%)
||
|Mervin Tweed 4,037 (56.18%)
|
|Lorne Hanks 1,247 (17.35%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Mervin Tweed
|}
Eastman
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Emerson
|
|David Kiansky 1,332 (18.05%)
||
|Jack Penner 3,994 (54.12%)
|
|Ted Klassen 2,054 (27.83%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Jack Penner†
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Lac du Bonnet
|
|Michael Hameluck 4,686 (49.22%)
||
|Darren Praznik 4,835 (50.78%)
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|Darren Praznik
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|La Verendrye
||
|Ron Lemieux 3,533 (41.20%)
|
|Ben Sveinson 3,367 (39.26%)
|
|Léon Morrissette 1,465 (17.08%)
|
|
|
|Bonnie Fedak (Manitoba Party) 211 (2.46%)
||
|Ben Sveinson
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Springfield
|
|Leonard Kimacovich 4,058 (40.58%)
||
|Ron Schuler 4,969 (49.68%)
|
|Patricia Aitken 771 (7.71%)
|
|
|
|Roger Woloshyn (Manitoba Party) 203 (2.03%)
||
|Glen Findlay
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Steinbach
|
|Peter Hiebert 910 (12.46%)
||
|Jim Penner 5,708 (78.13%)
|
|Rick Ginter 688 (9.42%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Albert Driedger
|-
|}
Northwest Winnipeg
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Burrows
||
|Doug Martindale 5,151 (66.34%)
|
|Cheryl Clark 724 (9.32%)
|
|Mike Babinsky 1,849 (23.81%)
|
|
|
|Darrell Rankin (Communist) 41 (0.53%)
||
|Doug Martindale
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Inkster
||
|Becky Barrett 3,501 (44.45%)
|
|George Sandhu 1,017 (12.91%)
|
|Kevin Lamoureux 3,358 (42.64%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Kevin Lamoureux
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Kildonan
||
|Dave Chomiak 6,101 (62.66%)
|
|Shannon Martin 2,542 (26.11%)
|
|Michael Lazar 1,093 (11.23%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Dave Chomiak
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Point Douglas
||
|George Hickes 3,338 (53.34%)
|
|Mary Richard 1,224 (19.56%)
|
|Ajay Chopra 1,336 (21.35%)
|
|
|
|Peter Juba (Independent) 360 (5.75%)
||
|George Hickes
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|St. Johns
||
|Gord Mackintosh 5,766 (72.00%)
|
|Ray Larkin 1,635 (20.42%)
|
|Patrick Fontaine 607 (7.58%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Gord Mackintosh
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|The Maples
||
|Cris Aglugub 4,329 (54.49%)
|
|Ellen Kowalski 2,310 (29.07%)
|
|Sudhir Sandhu 1,233 (15.52%)
|
|
|
|Caneda Menard (Independent) 73 (0.92%)
||
|Gary Kowalski
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Wellington
||
|Conrad Santos 4,102 (69.28%)
|
|Allison Frate 935 (15.79%)
|
|Bernie Doucette 757 (12.79%)
|
|
|
|Paul Baskerville (Manitoba Party) 127 (2.14%)
||
|Conrad Santos
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke| Totals
|
|NDP32,288 (60.34%)
|
|PC10,387 (19.41%)
|
|Liberal10,223 (19.13%)
|
|
|
|Other601 (0.12%)
|
|
|}
Northeast Winnipeg
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Concordia
||
|Gary Doer 5,691 (70.09%)
|
|Paul Murphy 1,898 (23.37%)
|
|Chris Hlady 444 (5.47%)
|
|C. David Nickarz 87 (1.07%)
|
|
||
|Gary Doer
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Elmwood
||
|Jim Maloway 5,176 (62.86%)
|
|Elsie Bordynuik 2,659 (32.29%)
|
|
|
|
|
|Cameron Neumann (Libertarian) 320 (3.89%)James Hoagaboam (Communist) 79 (0.96%)
||
|Jim Maloway
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Radisson
||
|Marianne Cerilli 5,198 (55.02%)
|
|Henry A. McDonald 3,114 (32.96%)
|
|Betty Ann Watts 1,136 (12.02%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Marianne Cerilli
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|River East
|
|Ross Eadie 4,624 (43.31%)
||
|Bonnie Mitchelson 5,366 (50.25%)
|
|Patrick Saydak688 (6.44%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Bonnie Mitchelson
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Rossmere
||
|Harry Schellenberg 5,097 (49.21%)
|
|Vic Toews 4,803 (46.37%)
|
|Cecilia Connelly 396 (3.82%)
|
|
|
|Chris Buors (Libertarian)62 (0.60%)
||
|Vic Toews
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|St. Boniface
||
|Greg Selinger 5,439 (56.57%)
|
|Robert Olson1,181 (12.28%)
|
|Jean-Paul Boily2,994 (31.14%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Neil Gaudry
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Transcona
||
|Daryl Reid 5,620 (63.88%)
|
|Dan Turner 2,409 (27.38%)
|
|Vibart Stewart 713 (8.10%)
|
|
|
|Paul Sidon (Communist)56 (0.64%)
||
|Daryl Reid
|}
West Winnipeg
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Assiniboia
||
|Jim Rondeau 4,347 (44.24%)
|
|Linda McIntosh 4,344 (44.20%)
|
|Deborah Shiloff 1,136 (11.56%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Linda McIntosh
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Charleswood
|
|Darryl Livingstone 2,176 (21.28%)
||
|Myrna Driedger 5,437 (54.46%)
|
|Alana McKenzie 2,323 (23.27%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Myrna Driedger
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Kirkfield Park
|
|Dennis Kshyk 3,060 (26.51%)
||
|Eric Stefanson 6,108 (52.92%)
|
|Vic Wieler 2,306 (19.98%)
|
|
|
|
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|
|Eric Stefanson
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|St. James
||
|Bonnie Korzeniowski 4,483 (44.76%)
|
|Gerry McAlpine3,845 (38.39%)
|
|Wayne Helgason1,625 (16.23%)
|
|
|
|
||
|MaryAnn Mihychuk
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Tuxedo
|
|Jack Dubois 2,333 (23.80%)
||
|Gary Filmon 5,952 (60.72%)
|
|Rochelle Zimberg 1,391 (14.19%)
|
|Markus Buchart 126 (1.29%)
|
|
||
|Gary Filmon
|}
Central Winnipeg
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Fort Rouge
||
|Tim Sale 4,759 (48.42%)
|
|Ron Paley 2,971 (30.23%)
|
|John Shanski 1,870 (19.03%)
|
|Alex Reid 355 (4.97%)
|
|
||
|New riding
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Lord Roberts
||
|Diane McGifford 5,240 (52.99%)
|
|Maggie Nishimura 2,678 (27.08%)
|
|Allen Mills 1,776 (17.96%)
|
|Lyle Ford 136 (1.38%)
|
|
||
|New riding
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Minto
||
|MaryAnn Mihychuk 4,534 (63.92%)
|
|Harry Lehotsky 2,035 (28.69%)
|
|Duane Poettcker 452 (6.37%)
|
|
|
|Harold Dyck (Communist)45 (0.63%) Didz Zuzens (Libertarian)27 (0.38%)
||
|New riding
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|River Heights
|
|Peter Reimer1,492 (12.98%)
|
|Mike Radcliffe4,708 (40.95%)
||
|Jon Gerrard5,173 (45.00%)
|
|Chris Billows92 (0.80%)
|
|Clancy Smith (Libertarian)31 (0.27%)
||
|Mike Radcliffe
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Wolseley
||
|Jean Friesen 5,282 (69.15%)
|
|Carol Friesen 1,685 (22.06%)
|
|
|
|Phyllis Abbé 356 (4.66%)
|
|David Allison (Communist) 133 (1.74%)
||
|Jean Friesen
|}
South Winnipeg
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Fort Garry
|
|Lawrie Cherniack 4,406 (43.46%)
||
|Joy Smith 4,436 (43.76%)
|
|Ted Gilson 1,143 (11.27%)
|
|
|
|Denise Van Rooyen Manitoba Party 116 (1.14%)
||
|Rosemary Vodrey
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Fort Whyte
|
|Bidhu Jha 2,815 (26.82%)
||
|John Loewen 6,480 (61.73%)
|
|Malli Aulakh 1,202 (11.45%)
|
|
|
|
||
|New riding
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Riel
||
|Linda Asper 4,883 (46.68%)
|
|David Newman 4,559 (44.03%)
|
|Clayton Weselowski 820 (7.92%)
|
|
|
|Mike Kubara (Manitoba Party) 91 (0.88%)
||
|David Newman
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Seine River
|
|Leslie Fingler 3,464 (35.34%)
||
|Louise Dacquay 4,684 (47.78%)
|
|Jake Pankratz 1,493 (15.23%)
|
|
|
|Warren Goodwin (Manitoba Party) 129 (1.32%)
||
|Louise Dacquay
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|Southdale
|
|Iris Taylor 2,909 (27.28%)
||
|Jack Reimer 5,455 (51.16%)
|
|Shirley Chaput 2,064 (19.36%)
|
|
|
|Paul Gibson (Manitoba Party)200 (1.88%)
||
|Jack Reimer
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|St. Norbert
|
|Marilyn Brick3,483 (38.69%)
||
|Marcel Laurendeau4,152 (46.14%)
|
|Mohinder Dhillon 1,313 (14.59%)
|
|
|
|
||
|Marcel Laurendeau
|-
|bgcolor=whitesmoke|St. Vital
||
|Nancy Allan5,298 (50.91%)
|
|Shirley Render 3,699 (36.09%)
|
|Lynn Clark1,099 (10.72%)
|
|
|
|Brian Hanslip (Manitoba Party)188 (1.83%)
||
|Shirley Render
|-
|}
Riding results
Party code:
PC: Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba
L: Manitoba Liberal Party
NDP: New Democratic Party of Manitoba
G: Manitoba Green Party
Comm: Communist Party of Canada - Manitoba
Lbt: Libertarian Party of Manitoba
M: Manitoba Party
(x) denotes or boldface incumbent. Expenditures refer only to candidate election expenses.
Post-election changes
Eric Stefanson (PC) resigned as the member for Kirkfield Park on September 7, 2000. A by-election was called for November 21 of the same year.
Tuxedo (res. Gary Filmon, September 18, 2000), November 21, 2000:
Heather Stefanson (PC) 2692
Rochelle Zimberg (L) 1586
Iona Starr (NDP) 916
Lac Du Bonnett (res. Darren Praznik, February 8, 2002), March 12, 2002:
Gerald Hawranik (PC) 3398
Michael Hameluck (NDP) 3234
George Harbotte (L) 1647
Riel (res. Linda Asper, April 24, 2003)
Steinbach (res. Jim Penner, April 24, 2003)
See also
Independent candidates, 1999 Manitoba provincial election
References
1999 elections in Canada
1999
1999 in Manitoba
September 1999 events in Canada
| 6,521 |
doc-en-9359_0
|
Capital controls are residency-based measures such as transaction taxes, other limits, or outright prohibitions that a nation's government can use to regulate flows from capital markets into and out of the country's capital account. These measures may be economy-wide, sector-specific (usually the financial sector), or industry specific (e.g. "strategic" industries). They may apply to all flows, or may differentiate by type or duration of the flow (debt, equity, or direct investment, and short-term vs. medium- and long-term).
Types of capital control include exchange controls that prevent or limit the buying and selling of a national currency at the market rate, caps on the allowed volume for the international sale or purchase of various financial assets, transaction taxes such as the proposed Tobin tax on currency exchanges, minimum stay requirements, requirements for mandatory approval, or even limits on the amount of money a private citizen is allowed to remove from the country. There have been several shifts of opinion on whether capital controls are beneficial and in what circumstances they should be used. Capital controls were an integral part of the Bretton Woods system which emerged after World War II and lasted until the early 1970s. This period was the first time capital controls had been endorsed by mainstream economics. Capital controls were relatively easy to impose, in part because international capital markets were less active in general. In the 1970s, economic liberal, free-market economists became increasingly successful in persuading their colleagues that capital controls were in the main harmful. The US, other Western governments, and multilateral financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank began to take a critical view of capital controls and persuaded many countries to abandon them to facilitate financial globalization.
The Latin American debt crisis of the early 1980s, the East Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, the Russian ruble crisis of 1998–1999, and the global financial crisis of 2008 highlighted the risks associated with the volatility of capital flows, and led many countries, even those with relatively open capital accounts, to make use of capital controls alongside macroeconomic and prudential policies as means to dampen the effects of volatile flows on their economies. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, as capital inflows surged to emerging market economies, a group of economists at the IMF outlined the elements of a policy toolkit to manage the macroeconomic and financial-stability risks associated with capital flow volatility. The proposed toolkit allowed a role for capital controls. The study, as well as a successor study focusing on financial-stability concerns stemming from capital flow volatility, while not representing an IMF official view, were nevertheless influential in generating debate among policy makers and the international community, and ultimately in bringing about a shift in the institutional position of the IMF. With the increased use of capital controls in recent years, the IMF has moved to destigmatize the use of capital controls alongside macroeconomic and prudential policies to deal with capital flow volatility. More widespread use of capital controls raises a host of multilateral coordination issues, as enunciated for example by the G-20, echoing the concerns voiced by John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White more than six decades ago.
History
Pre-World War I
Prior to the 19th century, there was generally little need for capital controls due to low levels of international trade and financial integration. In the First Age of Globalization, which is generally dated from 1870–1914, capital controls remained largely absent.
World War I to World War II: 1914–1945
Highly restrictive capital controls were introduced with the outbreak of World War I. In the 1920s they were generally relaxed, only to be strengthened again in the wake of the 1929 Great Crash. This was more an ad hoc response to potentially damaging flows rather than based on a change in normative economic theory. Economic historian Barry Eichengreen has implied that the use of capital controls peaked during World War II, but the more general view is that the most wide-ranging implementation occurred after Bretton Woods. An example of capital control in the interwar period was the Reich Flight Tax, introduced in 1931 by German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning. The tax was needed to limit the removal of capital from the country by wealthy residents. At the time, Germany was suffering economic hardship due to the Great Depression and the harsh war reparations imposed after World War I. Following the ascension of the Nazis to power in 1933, the tax was repurposed to confiscate money and property from Jews fleeing the state-sponsored antisemitism.
Bretton Woods era: 1945–1971
At the end of World War II, international capital was caged by the imposition of strong and wide-ranging capital controls as part of the newly created Bretton Woods system—it was perceived that this would help protect the interests of ordinary people and the wider economy. These measures were popular as at this time the western public's view of international bankers was generally very low, blaming them for the Great Depression. John Maynard Keynes, one of the principal architects of the Bretton Woods system, envisaged capital controls as a permanent feature of the international monetary system, though he had agreed current account convertibility should be adopted once international conditions had stabilised sufficiently. This essentially meant that currencies were to be freely convertible for the purposes of international trade in goods and services but not for capital account transactions. Most industrial economies relaxed their controls around 1958 to allow this to happen. The other leading architect of Bretton Woods, the American Harry Dexter White, and his boss Henry Morgenthau, were somewhat less radical than Keynes but still agreed on the need for permanent capital controls. In his closing address to the Bretton Woods conference, Morgenthau spoke of how the measures adopted would drive "the usurious money lenders from the temple of international finance."
Following the Keynesian Revolution, the first two decades after World War II saw little argument against capital controls from economists, though an exception was Milton Friedman. From the late 1950s, the effectiveness of capital controls began to break down, in part due to innovations such as the Eurodollar market. According to Dani Rodrik, it is unclear to what extent this was due to an unwillingness on the part of governments to respond effectively, as compared with an inability to do so. Eric Helleiner posits that heavy lobbying from Wall Street bankers was a factor in persuading American authorities not to subject the Eurodollar market to capital controls. From the late 1960s the prevailing opinion among economists began to switch to the view that capital controls are on the whole more harmful than beneficial.
While many of the capital controls in this era were directed at international financiers and banks, some were directed at individual citizens. In the 1960s, British individuals were at one point restricted from taking more than £50 with them out of the country for their foreign holidays. In their book This Time Is Different (2009), economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff suggest that the use of capital controls in this period, even more than its rapid economic growth, was responsible for the very low level of banking crises that occurred in the Bretton Woods era. According to Barry Eichengreen, capital controls were more effective in the 1940s and 1950s than they were subsequently.
Post-Bretton Woods era: 1971–2009
By the late 1970s, as part of the displacement of Keynesianism in favour of free-market orientated policies and theories, and the shift from the social-liberal paradigm to neoliberalism countries began abolishing their capital controls, starting between 1973–1974 with the US, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland, and followed by the United Kingdom in 1979. Most other advanced and emerging economies followed, chiefly in the 1980s and early 1990s. During the period spanning from approximately 1980–2009, the normative opinion was that capital controls were to be avoided except perhaps in a crisis. It was widely held that the absence of controls allowed capital to freely flow to where it is needed most, helping not only investors to enjoy good returns, but also helping ordinary people to benefit from economic growth. During the 1980s, many emerging economies decided or were coerced into following the advanced economies by abandoning their capital controls, though over 50 retained them at least partially.
The orthodox view that capital controls are a bad thing was challenged following the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Asian nations that had retained their capital controls such as India and China could credit them for allowing them to escape the crisis relatively unscathed. Malaysia's prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad imposed capital controls as an emergency measure in September 1998, both strict exchange controls and limits on outflows from portfolio investments; these were found to be effective in containing the damage from the crisis. In the early 1990s, even some pro-globalization economists like Jagdish Bhagwati, and some writers in publications like The Economist, spoke out in favor of a limited role for capital controls. While many developing world economies lost faith in the free market consensus, it remained strong among Western nations.
After the global financial crisis: 2009–2012
By 2009, the global financial crisis had caused a resurgence in Keynesian thought which reversed the previously prevailing orthodoxy. During the 2008–2012 Icelandic financial crisis, the IMF proposed that capital controls on outflows should be imposed by Iceland, calling them "an essential feature of the monetary policy framework, given the scale of potential capital outflows."
In the latter half of 2009, as the global economy started to recover from the global financial crisis, capital inflows to emerging market economies, especially, in Asia and Latin America, surged, raising macroeconomic and financial-stability risks. Several emerging market economies responded to these concerns by adopting capital controls or macroprudential measures; Brazil imposed a tax on the purchase of financial assets by foreigners and Taiwan restricted overseas investors from buying time deposits. The partial return to favor of capital controls is linked to a wider emerging consensus among policy makers for the greater use of macroprudential policy. According to economics journalist Paul Mason, international agreement for the global adoption of Macro prudential policy was reached at the 2009 G20 Pittsburgh summit, an agreement which Mason said had seemed impossible at the London summit which took place only a few months before.
Pro-capital control statements by various prominent economists, together with an influential staff position note prepared by IMF economists in February 2010 (Jonathan D. Ostry et al., 2010), and a follow-up note prepared in April 2011, have been hailed as an "end of an era" that eventually led to a change in the IMF's long held position that capital controls should be used only in extremis, as a last resort, and on a temporary basis. In June 2010, the Financial Times published several articles on the growing trend towards using capital controls. They noted influential voices from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank had joined the IMF in advising there is a role for capital controls. The FT reported on the recent tightening of controls in Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, and Russia. In Indonesia, recently implemented controls include a one-month minimum holding period for certain securities. In South Korea, limits have been placed on currency forward positions. In Taiwan, the access that foreigner investors have to certain bank deposits has been restricted. The FT cautioned that imposing controls has a downside including the creation of possible future problems in attracting funds.
By September 2010, emerging economies had experienced huge capital inflows resulting from carry trades made attractive to market participants by the expansionary monetary policies several large economies had undertaken over the previous two years as a response to the crisis. This has led to countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, South Korea, Taiwan, South Africa, Russia, and Poland further reviewing the possibility of increasing their capital controls as a response. In October 2010, with reference to increased concern about capital flows and widespread talk of an imminent currency war, financier George Soros has suggested that capital controls are going to become much more widely used over the next few years. Several analysts have questioned whether controls will be effective for most countries, with Chile's finance minister saying his country had no plans to use them.
In February 2011, citing evidence from new IMF research (Jonathan D. Ostry et al., 2010) that restricting short-term capital inflows could lower financial-stability risks, over 250 economists headed by Joseph Stiglitz wrote a letter to the Obama administration asking them to remove clauses from various bilateral trade agreements that allow the use of capital controls to be penalized. There was strong counter lobbying by business and so far the US administration has not acted on the call, although some figures such as Treasury secretary Tim Geithner have spoken out in support of capital controls at least in certain circumstances.
Econometric analyses undertaken by the IMF, and other academic economists found that in general countries which deployed capital controls weathered the 2008 crisis better than comparable countries which did not. In April 2011, the IMF published its first ever set of guidelines for the use of capital controls. At the 2011 G-20 Cannes summit, the G20 agreed that developing countries should have even greater freedom to use capital controls than the IMF guidelines allow. A few weeks later, the Bank of England published a paper where they broadly welcomed the G20's decision in favor of even greater use of capital controls, though they caution that compared to developing countries, advanced economies may find it harder to implement efficient controls. Not all momentum has been in favor of increased use of capital controls however. In December 2011, China partially loosened its controls on inbound capital flows, which the Financial Times described as reflecting an ongoing desire by Chinese authorities for further liberalization. India also lifted some of its controls on inbound capital in early January 2012, drawing criticism from economist Arvind Subramanian, who considers relaxing capital controls a good policy for China but not for India considering her different economic circumstances.
In September 2012, Michael W. Klein of Tufts University challenged the emergent consensus that short-term capital controls can be beneficial, publishing a preliminary study that found the measures used by countries like Brazil had been ineffective (at least up to 2010). Klein argues it was only countries with long term capital controls, such as China and India, that have enjoyed measurable protection from adverse capital flows. In the same month, Ila Patnaik and Ajay Shah of the NIPFP published an article about the permanent and comprehensive capital controls in India, which seem to have been ineffective in achieving the goals of macroeconomic policy. Other studies have found that capital controls may lower financial stability risks, while the controls Brazilian authorities adopted after the 2008 financial crisis did have some beneficial effect on Brazil itself.
Capital controls may have externalities. Some empirical studies find that capital flows were diverted to other countries as capital controls were tightened in Brazil. An IMF staff discussion note (Jonathan D. Ostry et al., 2012) explores the multilateral consequences of capital controls, and the desirability of international cooperation to achieve globally efficient outcomes. It flags three issues of potential concern. First is the possibility that capital controls may be used as a substitute for warranted external adjustment, such as when inflow controls are used to sustain an undervalued currency. Second, the imposition of capital controls by one country may deflect some capital towards other recipient countries, exacerbating their inflow problem. Third, policies in source countries (including monetary policy) may exacerbate problems faced by capital-receiving countries if they increase the volume or riskiness of capital flows. The paper poists that if capital controls are justified from a national standpoint (in terms of reducing domestic distortions), then under a range of circumstances they should be pursued even if they give rise to cross-border spillovers. If policies in one country exacerbate existing distortions in other countries, and it is costly for other countries to respond, then multilateral coordination of unilateral policies is likely to be beneficial. Coordination may require borrowers to reduce inflow controls or an agreement with lenders to partially internalize the risks from excessively large or risky outflows.
In December 2012, the IMF published a staff paper which further expanded on their recent support for the limited use of capital controls.
Impossible trinity trilemma
The history of capital controls is sometimes discussed in relation to the impossible trinity (trilemma, the unholy trinity), the finding that its impossible for a nation's economic policy to simultaneously deliver more than two of the following three desirable macroeconomic goals, namely a fixed exchange rate, an independent monetary policy, and free movement for capital (absence of capital controls). In the First Age of Globalization, governments largely chose to pursue a stable exchange rate while allowing freedom of movement for capital. The sacrifice was that their monetary policy was largely dictated by international conditions, not by the needs of the domestic economy. In the Bretton Woods period, governments were free to have both generally stable exchange rates and independent monetary policies at the price of capital controls. The impossible trinity concept was especially influential during this era as a justification for capital controls. In the Washington Consensus period, advanced economies generally chose to allow freedom of capital and to continue maintaining an independent monetary policy while accepting a floating or semi-floating exchange rate.
Capital controls in the European Single Market and EFTA
The free flow of capital is one of the Four Freedoms of the European Single Market. Despite the progress that has been made, Europe's capital markets remain fragmented along national lines and European economies remain heavily reliant on the banking sector for their funding needs. Within the building on the Investment Plan for Europe for a closer integration of capital markets, the European Commission adopted in 2015 the Action Plan on Building a Capital Markets Union (CMU) setting out a list of key measures to achieve a true single market for capital in Europe, which deepens the existing Banking Union, because this revolves around disintermediated, market-based forms of financing, which should represent an alternative to the traditionally predominant in Europe bank-based financing channel. The project is a political signal to strengthen the European Single Market as a project of European Union (EU)'s 28 member states instead of just the Eurozone countries, and sent a strong signal to the UK to remain an active part of the EU, before Brexit.
There have been three instances of capital controls in the EU and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) since 2008 ,all of them triggered by banking crises.
Iceland (2008–2017)
In its 2008 financial crisis, Iceland (a member of the EFTA but not of the EU) imposed capital controls due to the collapse of its banking system. Iceland's government said in June 2015 that it planned to lift them; however, since the announced plans included a tax on taking capital out of the country, arguably they still constituted capital controls. The Icelandic government announced that capital controls had been lifted on 12 March 2017. In 2017, University of California, Berkeley, economist Jon Steinsson said that he had opposed the introduction of capital controls in Iceland during the crisis but that the experience in Iceland had made him change his mind, commenting: "The government needed to finance very large deficits. The imposition of capital controls locked a considerable amount of foreign capital in the country. It stands to reason that these funds substantially lowered the government's financing cost, and it is unlikely that the government could have done nearly as much deficit spending without capital controls."
Republic of Cyprus (2013–2015)
Cyprus, a Eurozone member state which is closely linked to Greece, imposed the Eurozone's first temporary capital controls in 2013 as part of its response to the 2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis. These capital controls were lifted in 2015, with the last controls being removed in April 2015.
Greece (2015–2019)
Since the Greek debt crisis intensified in the 2010s decade, Greece has implemented capital controls. At the end of August, the Greek government announced that the last capital restrictions would be lifted as of 1 September 2019, about 50 months after they were introduced.
Adoption of prudential measures
The prudential capital controls measure distinguishes itself from the general capital controls as summarized above as it is one of the prudential regulations that aims to mitigate the systemic risk, reduce the business cycle volatility, increase the macroeconomic stability, and enhance the social welfare. It generally regulates inflows only and take ex-ante policy interventions. The prudence requirement says that such regulation should curb and manage the excessive risk accumulation process with cautious forethought to prevent an emerging financial crisis and economic collapse. The ex-ante timing means that such regulation should be taken effectively before the realization of any unfettered crisis as opposed to taking policy interventions after a severe crisis already hits the economy.
Free movement of capital and payments
Full freedom of movement for capital and payments has so far only been approached between individual pairings of states which have free trade agreements and relative freedom from capital controls, such as Canada and the US, or the complete freedom within regions such as the EU, with its "Four Freedoms" and the Eurozone. During the First Age of Globalization that was brought to an end by World War I, there were very few restrictions on the movement of capital, but all major economies except for the United Kingdom and the Netherlands heavily restricted payments for goods by the use of current account controls such as tariffs and duties.
There is no consensus on whether capital control restrictions on the free movement of capital and payments across national borders benefits developing countries. Many economists agree that lifting capital controls while inflationary pressures persist, the country is in debt, and foreign currency reserves are low, will not be beneficial. When capital controls were lifted under these conditions in Argentina, the peso lost 30 percent of its value relative to the dollar. Most countries will lift capital controls during boom periods.
According to a 2016 study, the implementation of capital controls can be beneficial in a two-country situation for the country that implements the capital controls. The effects of capital controls are more ambiguous when both countries implement capital controls.
Arguments in favour of free capital movement
Pro-free market economists claim the following advantages for free movement of capital:
It enhances overall economic growth by allowing savings to be channelled to their most productive use.
By encouraging foreign direct investment, it helps developing economies to benefit from foreign expertise.
Allows states to raise funds from external markets to help them mitigate a temporary recession.
Enables both savers and borrowers to secure the best available market rate.
When controls include taxes, funds raised are sometimes siphoned off by corrupt government officials for their personal use.
Hawala-type traders across Asia have always been able to evade currency movement controls
Computer and communications technologies have made unimpeded electronic funds transfer a convenience for increasing numbers of bank customers.
Arguments in favour of capital controls
Pro-capital control economists have made the following points.
Capital controls may represent an optimal macroprudential policy that reduces the risk of financial crises and prevents the associated externalities.
Global economic growth was on average considerably higher in the Bretton Woods periods where capital controls were widely in use. Using regression analysis, economists such as Dani Rodrik have found no positive correlation between growth and free capital movement.
Capital controls limiting a nation's residents from owning foreign assets can ensure that domestic credit is available more cheaply than would otherwise be the case. This sort of capital control is still in effect in both India and China. In India the controls encourage residents to provide cheap funds directly to the government, while in China it means that Chinese businesses have an inexpensive source of loans.
Economic crises have been considerably more frequent since the Bretton Woods capital controls were relaxed. Even economic historians who class capital controls as repressive have concluded that capital controls, more than the period's high growth, were responsible for the infrequency of crisis. Large uncontrolled capital inflows have frequently damaged a nation's economic development by causing its currency to appreciate, by contributing to inflation, and by causing unsustainable economic booms which often precede financial crises, which are in turn caused when the inflows sharply reverse and both domestic and foreign capital flee the country. The risk of crisis is especially high in developing economies where the inbound flows become loans denominated in foreign currency, so that the repayments become considerably more expensive as the developing country's currency depreciates. This is known as original sin.
See also
Prudential capital controls
Price control
Bretton Woods System
Embedded liberalism
Impossible trinity
Mundell–Fleming model
Financial repression
Macroprudential policy
Notes and references
Further reading
States and the Reemergence of Global Finance (1994) by Eric Helleiner – Chapter 2 is excellent for the pre World War II history of capital controls and their stenghening with Bretton Woods. Remaining chapters cover their decline from the 1960s through to the early 1990s. Helleiner offers extensive additional reading for those with a deep interest in the history of capital controls.
Erten, Bilge, Anton Korinek, and José Antonio Ocampo. 2021. "Capital Controls: Theory and Evidence". Journal of Economic Literature, 59 (1): 45-89.
External links
Christopher J. Neely, An introduction to capital controls (PDF), Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, November/December 1999, pp. 13–30
James Oliver, What are Capital Controls?, University of Iowa Center for International Finance & Development
Ethan Kaplan, Dani Rodrik (2001) Did the Malaysian capital controls work? NBER Working Paper No. 8142
Bryan Balin, India's New Capital Restrictions: What Are They, Why Were They Created, and Have They Been Effective? The Johns Hopkins University, 2008
José Antonio Cordero and Juan Antonio Montecino, Capital Controls and Monetary Policy in Developing Countries, Center for Economic and Policy Research, April 2010
Financial Times (2011) Global summary showing most of the worlds population are subject to capital controls as of 2011
Kevin Gallagher, Regaining control – detailed paper on the use of capital controls post WWII, with emphases on the increased use after the 2008 crises, UMass, 2011
Anton Korinek (2011), The New Economics of Prudential Capital Controls (PDF), IMF Economic Review 59(3), 2011
Monetary policy
Foreign direct investment
Price controls
Protectionism
Economics catchphrases
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The Vieques, Puerto Rico, Naval Training Range was a United States naval facility located on the island of Vieques, about 5 miles east of mainland Puerto Rico. Starting in November 1941, the navy used the range for military exercises. Military operations ended in 2001, with the Navy completely leaving the area in 2003.
Searching for a location
The Department of the Navy started searching for a location to situate a naval base during the 1940s. Land was sold by the native inhabitants between 1941 and 1950, consisting of two parcels making up 22,000 acres or about two-thirds of the island. Of that, 8,000 acres on the western end of the island was primarily used as a naval ammunition depot until the property was returned to the Municipality of Vieques on May 1, 2001.
The eastern end of the island was used for live training exercises, ship-to-shore gunfire, air-to-ground bombing and US Marine amphibious landings starting from the 1940s onward. Within that area was a 900-acre Live Impact Area (LIA) used for targeting live ordnance. The LIA was located at the eastern tip of the island and away from the civilian population.
Description of the Navy's facilities
The former Vieques Naval Training Range (VNTR) is located on the eastern half and the former Naval Ammunition Support Detachment (NASD) is located on the western one-third of the island. Located between these military sites lay the local civilian communities of Isabel Segunda and Esperanza.
Operations on East Vieques
Operations on West Vieques
Military operations on the west side of the island had been focused on storing and processing of supplies and the disposal of waste. Sites identified for environmental clean-up include the following:
A former general waste dump at a mangrove swamp in Laguna Arenas along Highway 200.
The site of a 1970 underground storage tank for waste oil removed from the former public works area in 1996.
A former asphalt plant on the south side of Route 200, which operated from the 1960s until 1998.
An environmental baseline survey discovered a munitions open-burn/open-detonation area on the western tip of the island surrounding Punta Boca Quebrada. Further surveying identified 16 possible open-burn/open-detonation sites in the area. As a result, 24 acres of roads and beaches were inspected for munitions, cleared of munitions with clean up completed in December 2011.
Base closure and clean-up
After the base was closed, Puerto Rico Governor Sila Calderon requested Vieques be placed on the U.S. National Priorities List as a designated superfund clean-up site. the EPA has listed the following contaminants and ordnances at the western portion of the naval station: unexploded ordnance UXO, remnants of exploded ordnance, mercury, lead, copper, magnesium, lithium, napalm, depleted uranium along with other unspecified materials. In addition to these, the eastern portion of the site "may also include" polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), solvents and pesticides.
Both US Navy and EPA are coordinating efforts to clean up Vieques.
the Navy was to "conduct an environmental investigation of its previously owned property under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to determine what cleanup actions" were needed. The EPA has provided "technical assistance and guidance to the Navy on environmental issues related to the land transfer in western Vieques." Early on it was noted that, it would be difficult to discover what measures the U.S. must take, because thick jungle growth hampers testing for contaminants. Furthermore, jungle growth cannot be easily removed because the forests are littered with unexploded ordnance.
For the remainder of Fiscal Year 2015 Congress appropriated $17 million for the cleanup of Vieques, and $1.4 million for the cleanup of Culebra. As of 2014, the Navy has spent about $220 million since 2003, to investigate and clean contaminated lands on Vieques. Since 2007, about half of the money budgeted for munitions removal has been awarded to 23 local companies in Puerto Rico. As of 2014, "the Navy spends more money each year to clean up Vieques than it is spending to clean up any other former Navy installation in the US".
Protests against U.S. Navy 1999
The "Navy–Vieques protests" is the name given by the English-speaking media to a series of protests starting in 1999 on the Puerto Rican island-municipality of Vieques. The protesters were against the use of the island by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps for bombing target practice.
President Clinton 1999-2000
President Clinton asked Secretary of Defense William Cohen to establish a special panel to study the situation. The four-member panel was chaired by Frank Rush, the then-acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for force management policy, and is consequently sometimes called the Rush panel. The panel laid out history and legal situation, and released its report with 11 recommendations on October 19, 1999.
In January 2000, President Clinton and then Governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Rosselló, together called for a referendum on Vieques. This was first scheduled for November 2001, and then rescheduled for January 2002. The referendum would let voters choose to either end the military's use of the range by May 2003. Alternatively, they could vote to allow military operations to continue indefinitely.
President George W. Bush, 2001
On April 27, 2001 the Navy resumed operations and protesting resumed.
On June 14, 2001, the Bush Administration ordered the end of military training operations on Vieques in May 2003. The Bush decision superseded previous actions of the Clinton Administration.
Protester history
David Sanes
On April 19, 1999, a civilian employee named David Sanes Rodríguez was killed when military ordnance was dropped too close to his security post. According to a Congressional research report, a Marine Corps F-18 dropped two 500-pound bombs striking the security post killing Rodriguez and injuring four others. The F-18 was on a training mission when the incident occurred. The Congressional report states the ordnance was dropped "within the overall range perimeter." After this incident the range was temporarily closed.
The death of Rodriguez triggered a wave of protests from local residents. Then U.S. President Clinton promised, later reiterated by his successor George W. Bush, that the navy would leave Vieques by May 2003.
Encampments
A few months after Sanes's death, small wooden structures were erected inside the practice grounds, and encampments from all over the island-municipality started to attract attention.
By that time, the protests had also started to gain international attention, and people from all over the world joined the struggle. Many celebrities, including the political leader Ruben Berrios, singers Danny Rivera, Robi Draco Rosa and Ricky Martin, boxer Félix "Tito" Trinidad, writers Ana Lydia Vega and Giannina Braschi, American actor Edward James Olmos and Guatemala's Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú supported the cause, as did Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Al Sharpton, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Pope John Paul II once said that he wanted peace for Vieques. The Archbishop of San Juan, Roberto González Nieves, was heavily involved in the protests that took place in the municipality. He managed to put together a coalition of different Puerto Rican church leaders that gathered international attention. Olmos, Sharpton and Kennedy also served jail time; while serving his prison term in Puerto Rico, Kennedy's wife Mary gave birth to the couple's sixth child, a son they named Aidan Caohman Vieques Kennedy.
The Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores held a series of incursions into the bombing ranges to halt the bombing without being arrested, and a few of them were successful in that second objective.
Massive occupation of practice range
On May 4, 2000, civil disobedience encampments inside the practice grounds were evacuated by U.S. Marshals, Marines and Navy.
Five days later, in an internationally covered event, hundreds of protesters and supporters from all over the world and with different ideologies, penetrated the military practice grounds. Natives of Vieques, many Puerto Ricans, Hollywood celebrities, priests, pastors, friars, athletes, and politicians including U.S. Representatives Luis Gutiérrez and Nydia Velázquez were among them. The incursion had been well publicized and resulted in the arrest of the protesters by Marshals, as both sides of the struggle wanted to avoid brushes with the military.
With non-violence as the main objective of the protests, the protesters behaved in a peaceful manner upon their arrest, shouting "Paz para Vieques" ("Peace for Vieques"). Others sang themes related to peace or religion. A few had to be removed by force but didn't offer physical resistance or insult the officials. Many protesters were set free a few hours after being jailed, others were released a few days later. Only a few had sentences imposed that lasted between one and six months. The official charge was trespassing on U.S. military territory.
Incursions continue, protests come to an end
With the continuation of bombing practices by the U.S. Navy, incursions to the practice grounds continued, until the U.S. government announced that the military would be leaving the island in May 2003.
On March 31, 2004, the United States closed its Roosevelt Roads Naval Station on mainland Puerto Rico. A skeleton staff of 200, down from approximately 1,200 civilian and 700 military personnel, stayed on at the facility until the transfer of the property was completed. The closure of the base at Roosevelt Roads resulted in a substantial financial loss to the economy of Puerto Rico that the Navy estimates at $250 to $300 million a year. Admiral Robert J. Natter, commander of the Atlantic Fleet, is on record as saying: "Without Vieques there is no way I need the Navy facilities at Roosevelt Roads — none. It's a drain on Defense Department and taxpayer dollars."
Nevertheless, the government of Puerto Rico has announced that the airport at the base will be reopened, and will become a major Caribbean air cargo hub, relieving Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport and extending its useful life indefinitely without the need for property expansion. It will also be used to centralize general aviation activities now dispersed over several municipal airports, saving the Puerto Rico Ports Authority significant sums of money on maintenance and other costs. Other plans are in motion to make use of other sections of the former base to benefit the local economy. A large portion of the undeveloped land in the property is being set aside for ecological preservation.
Further protests
On April 30, 2003 many supporters of the Cause of Vieques traveled to the island-municipality to hold a celebration inside the past bombing practice grounds. The event was recorded by national TV news. On May 1, 2003, the crowd entered the former bombing range en masse. Their celebration turned aggressive, in contrast to the peaceful protests held by some of them a few months earlier.
The Police Task force of Puerto Rico was mobilized from the main island, as were the Police of Vieques, and other previously mobilized law enforcement officials, who were unprepared for the now-violent celebration. The president of the Teachers Federation of Puerto Rico, and a leader of the cause, was recorded by TV cameras engaging in violent and destructive behavior. The crowd destroyed a former Navy guard-house and military trucks with drop hammers. The TV footage was used as evidence to criminally indict the vandals, as the property destroyed was now owned by the NRCS.
Those indicted said that their behavior was caused by the resentment and bitterness that had accumulated from the decades of suffering due to the Navy's bombing practices on the island. Norma Burgos, a Senator of Puerto Rico, who had formerly been imprisoned for trespassing on the bombing range several months earlier, justified the behavior by comparing it to the fall of Saddam Hussein's statue in the recent invasion of Iraq — in which U.S. soldiers used an Army tank (a property of the U.S. government) to tear it down. Their defense failed, and more than a dozen of those charged were imprisoned for "damages and destruction of public property."
Military withdrawal 2001-2003
In 2001, the United States Navy left western Vieques, which had been used as an ammunition depot. Now the United States Fish and Wildlife Service controls 3,100 acres (13 km²) of this land — about half of the formerly owned military property. Over the course of U.S. Navy occupancy, nearly 22 million pounds (10,000 tonnes) of military and industrial waste, such as oils, solvents, lubricants, lead paint, acid and 55 US gallon (200 L) drums, were deposited on the western portion of the island. As cited by McCaffrey, according to the Universidad Metropolitana, the extent of leaching is unknown. In 2005 the Navy was investigating 17 potentially contaminated sites.
On May 1, 2003 the Navy finished turning over all of its lands to the U.S. Department of the Interior. This included the Navy's entire eastern portion of the island — 14,573 acres (58.97 km2), which had mainly been used as a dumping ground. McCaffrey cites data from the U.S. Navy: "Vieques was bombed an average of 180 days per year. In 1998, the last year before protests interrupted maneuvers, the navy dropped 23,000 bombs on the island, the majority of which contained explosives."
The live impact range, which is the most contaminated zone, was given the highest protected environmental status, that of a "wilderness preserve." The Fish and Wildlife Service states that Vieques Wildlife Refuge is an ecologically diverse Caribbean wildlife refuge. The EPA has declared the refuge a superfund site. Much of the lands are now termed wildlife refuges, meaning that humans are not allowed on the land, therefore allowing the Navy to avoid cleanup. Whether or not the U.S. made the land a wildlife refuge to avoid cleaning up the island is debated.
Contamination and health effects
A survey by the Puerto Rico Health Department revealed that the cancer rate in Vieques is 27% higher than mainland Puerto Rico. In a 2001 federal lawsuit, Vieques' environmental groups and residents accused the Navy of causing "more damage than any other single actor in the history of Puerto Rico". The prosecutors stated that the Navy's activities contaminated much of the eastern portion of the island with a wide range of toxic substances. As cited by Franciscans International, according to the Navy's figures, throughout the course of six decades about 5 million pounds (2,000 t) of ordnance was dropped on Vieques every year. Ordnance included toxic compounds and elements such as arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, depleted uranium and napalm, and tons of a fiberglass-like substance. Most of these toxins are persistent and may bioaccumulate.
For decades environmentalists have complained that contaminants from naval exercises have spread to other parts of the island though the air, water, and soil. The people of Vieques live downwind from where the bombing was done; thus toxins that can be airborne — such as depleted uranium — could easily come in contact with civilians. Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) investigated contamination in Vieques and discovered that
A number of studies conducted by well-qualified scientists from universities in the United States and in Puerto Rico reveal that there is a high probability that the compounds released by the Navy exercises and chemical testing created toxic levels in the environment and could be the cause of serious medical conditions affecting the people of Vieques.
The same newspaper article reported that a study by the Puerto Rico Health Department cited high levels of heavy metals in plants, animals and humans and that high levels of heavy metals appear to be causing increased cancer and infant mortality rates, and childhood asthma. In the live impact range on the eastern tip of island, studies have shown that the ground water is contaminated by nitrates and explosives. Furthermore, unexploded weapons, ordnance, and sunken barges litter the floor of the Caribbean Sea. Testing done in the Icacos Lagoon showed concentrations of cadmium in crabs to be 1,000 times higher than the World Health Organization's "tolerable ingestion maximum dosage." Furthermore, toxic levels of heavy metals, including lead, arsenic, selenium, mercury and zinc, have been found in several species of fish. In the lawsuit conducted by environmentalists and the people of Vieques against the Navy, the prosecutors noted that most residents of Vieques use many of these same species of fish as a source of food. Cadmium and arsenic are carcinogenic. One study from 1999 that tested hair samples from various age groups of Vieques residents revealed that 69% were contaminated with cadmium and arsenic, and 34% had toxic levels of mercury.
Biologist Arturo Massol and radiochemist Elba Díaz conducted an unpublished study in 2001 that showed vegetables and plants growing in the civilian area of Vieques were highly contaminated with heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and copper. Furthermore, they discovered that metal concentrations in edible crops were both substantially above the maximum levels set by the European Union Council and much higher than plants tested in mainland Puerto Rico. Chilies, pasture grasses, and squashes were affected more than plants with deeper root systems such as trees. This is consistent with the theory that heavy metals travel by air to civilian areas via the steady easterly trade winds that blow directly from the bombing zone.
Mercury affects the brain, cardiovascular system, kidneys and the developing fetus. According to a 2006 newspaper article there is a study by the Puerto Rico Health Department which linked abnormally high levels of asthma in children to mercury contamination. In 2004, the infant mortality rate in Vieques was 55% higher than the other 77 municipalities in Puerto Rico—a rate of almost 20 per 1000 live births as opposed to 12.8.
On November 17, 2002, Milivi Adams, Vieques native, died from cancer. Her death became a symbol in the battle against the military presence on the island.
Depleted uranium
In addition to the toxic materials that the Navy had been dropping on Vieques since the 1940s, in 1999 the Navy accidentally fired depleted uranium bullets ("DU"). The Navy admitted to firing just 263 rounds of depleted uranium bullets. Based on a report by RAND, a research corporation, the U.S. Department of Defense claims DU doesn't compromise human health. However, Dan Fahey, the Director of Research at the Gulf War Resource Center, points out that the RAND report was incomplete: it ignored 68 relevant sources that show clear relationships between DU and harm to human health.
Nuclear target ship wreck
In 1958, the veteran World War II Fletcher Class Destroyer USS Killen (DD593) served as a target ship for wreckage during the atom bomb tests in Operation Hardtack I (shots WAHOO and UMBRELLA). In 1962 it was engaged in highly explosive tests in the Chesapeake Bay to assess the structural effects of the ship's nuclear exposures. Killen was struck from the Naval Vessel Register and sent to the US Naval Station at Roosevelt Roads in January 1963 to be used as a target ship for missile and gunnery practice, where she was eventually sunk/scuttled in a shallow bay in 1975 and still lies as of 2010.
Until 2002 the US Navy seems to have lost track of the ship's nuclear past and of the wreck site. A sizeable portion of the ship's stern is removed by a distance of across the bay. The wreckage is present on the bay floor and is absent all structures from its main deck including nearly all the main decking itself: essentially a shell of a ship without a lid. Thousands of tons of the ship are missing.
Studies and site visits made in 1999 by a Puerto Rican marine archaeologist and the University of Georgia discovered nearly two hundred steel barrels of unknown origin and contents among the wreckage of the Killen. Based on government descriptions of the nuclear tests in the Pacific, some scientists and Vieques environmental activists have been concerned that nuclear-fallout cleaning materials were stored inside those barrels and improperly disposed, possibly entering the local environment prior to sinking or exposing contaminants to the animals and habitat of Bahia Salina del Sur in Vieques after sinking.
In 2003, a team from the University of Georgia conducted radiological and toxicological tests of the wreckage using underwater detection equipment. The report discussed testing the interiors of the steel barrels at the wreck site of four intact barrels and five 'open' ones, that were probed with a siphon-extraction tube. They found that the wreck site did not present elevated radiological signatures in the ship's hull or in the interior components of the barrels. The report raised concerns about possible contamination from ordnance at the site. the origin and contents of the barrels are still unknown.
Sonic booms
It had been asserted that the noise created by the Navy's testing had negatively affected the health of civilians living on Vieques. In a study conducted for Puerto Rican Governor Calderon, 48 of the 50 Vieques residents tested were diagnosed as suffering from vibroacoustic disease — a thickening of heart tissue caused by exposure to sonic booms. Simultaneously, the Ponce School of Medicine conducted an independent study and found other data to confirm the presence of vibroacoustic disease: 79% of Viequenses fishermen have thickened heart tissue, which is the main symptom of vibroacoustic disease. This disease is said to lead to heart arrhythmia, or even death.
The Ponce School of Medicine study was reviewed by the United States Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The tapes of echocardiograms, which measured the pericardial thickness, were blind-coded and sent to the Mayo Clinic to repeat without knowledge of whether study subjects were from Vieques or from the control group. It concluded in 2001 that "there is no evidence from the Vieques Heart Study to indicate clinically significant heart disease".
Criticism of health risks
The areas that were used for burning expired ammunition take up a bit less than 300 acres (1.2 km²) and the Navy has agreed to clean up the sites according to EPA standards. At a press conference in 2001 Robert B. Pirie, Under Secretary of the Navy, said that: "our training poses no danger and little burden to Viequenses and is absolutely vital to our national security".
Pirie claimed that most of the studies linking the Navy's actions to the decline of public health were done by researchers affiliated with the Puerto Rico Independence Party, and that "none of the health-related allegations made have stood-up to credible scientific scrutiny or universally accepted legal standards". Pirie also claimed that the National Cancer Institute had said that cancer rates in many major U.S. cities are actually higher than the cancer rates in Vieques. In fact, the institute cautioned that the variations in the rates could be attributed to chance, given the small population on Vieques. According to Pirie the figures drawn from the Carmen Feliciano data about an increased infant mortality rate in Vieques are misleading because the studies that used her information omitted a range of data. According to him, when that data was factored in the infant mortality rate was actually lower than that in the rest of Puerto Rico. On behalf of the Navy, Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health conducted a review of the study on vibroacoustic disease done by the Vieques government. The 2001 review found no evidence to conclude that vibroacoustic disease symptoms on Vieques were due to noise from Navy exercises. Furthermore, Pirie claimed that the report suggested that vibroacoustic disease may not actually exist.
ATSDR study
The ATSDR tested for hazardous materials in the water, air and soil in order to determine whether the health of the Viequenses were at risk. It found that either the Navy had not affected the environment or that the Navy had affected it so minimally that the contamination would pose no threat to human health. However, other scientists contend that ATSDR's studies were incomplete. The ATSDR is notorious for denying links between community contamination and health affects. After monitoring the ATSDR for ten years, Linda King of the Environmental Health Network reported that only one ATSDR study among hundreds has found contaminants in the community to be the cause of health problems.
In 2003 the ATSDR determined that it is safe to eat seafood from all waters and coastal lands around the island of Vieques. Even though several metals were detected in the local seafood, ATSDR concluded that the metals would not pose a health risk even if a person ate fish and shellfish every day for 70 years.
It acknowledged that Navy training has elevated the levels of some metals in the soil of the former Live Impact Area, but holds that the levels are too low to harm humans. It concluded that "the public had not been exposed to depleted uranium contamination above normal background (naturally occurring) levels". It found that the air does not contain dangerous levels of chemicals. It claimed that at eight miles, the Live Impact Area is too far from residential areas for airborne dust and contaminants from training activities to be concentrated enough to cause harm when coming in contact with civilians. It determined that Naval training and testing has in no way affected the drinking water on Vieques. Usually most of the island's drinking water comes through an underwater pipeline from mainland Puerto Rico. The ATSDR report concluded that groundwater from the former Live Impact Area cannot contaminate the wells due to geological barriers, and although there were high levels of nitrates in some wells, this was due to local, most likely agricultural, sources. It cautioned that it is not safe for children and pregnant women to drink water from the contaminated wells.
ATSDR study contested
The ATSDR avoided drawing links between the navy training and health concerns on Vieques. For example, the agency neglected to test several relevant wells, including the Sun Bay Wells, which serve as the backup water supply for Vieques in case the pipeline from mainland Puerto Rico breaks down. Furthermore, the navy's claim that groundwater from the testing site cannot reach residential groundwater supplies may be false. At a public meeting, when asked why the navy had installed monitoring wells designed to track the spread of explosive contaminants between the impact area and the civilian area, the ATSDR refused to comment. The ATSDR also did not adequately emphasize negative findings in their report, such as the high levels of benzene —more than four times the maximum allowed, which were found in a groundwater well on the navy's property. By 2009 the ATSDR had rescinded many of their early conclusions in the face of mounting criticism.
See also
Roosevelt Roads Naval Station
Cause for Vieques
Navy-Vieques protests
Navy-Culebra protests
References
Vieques, Puerto Rico
Bombing ranges
Political history of Puerto Rico
Vieques, Puerto Rico
Closed military facilities in Puerto Rico
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ESL Pro League Season 8 (shortened as EPL Season 8) is a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament run by ESL. It is the eighth season of the ESL Pro League. Teams from five continents, North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America, will compete in six leagues to attempt to qualify for the Finals. The EPL finals returned to Odense, Denmark. The regular season started on September 26, 2018, and will end on November 14, 2018. China's season started with ViCi Gaming upsetting TyLoo in a best of three series. Southeast Asia's season started with B.O.O.T-dream[S]cape taking down Recca Esports, which included a 16-0 map. Europe's season started with Space Soldiers defeating Ninjas in Pyjamas and ended with HellRaisers defeating G2 Esports. North America's season kicked off with Renegades dominating and ended with defeating Luminosity Gaming.
The finals started on December 4, 2018, and ended on December 9, 2018. In the finals Astralis defeated Team Liquid in four maps in a five-game series to take home a second straight EPL title.
This tournament is the ninth tournament of the first season of the Intel Grand Slam, which is a list of premier tournaments run by ESL and DreamHack. The first team to win four titles would earn an extra $1,000,000. Astralis claimed this title after winning DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018, ESL Pro League Season 7, Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII - Chicago, and this event.
Format
The eighth season saw used the same format as the seventh season. ESL announced on February 20, 2018, that the EPL Finals would be expanded to 16 teams. On March 5, 2018, EPL announced the creation of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) division, which would divide teams up into three regions and then feature eight teams in an APAC regional. The eighth season would split up this region into three leagues, which includes China (effectively East Asia), Southeast Asia, and Oceania. EPL later announced on March 15, 2018, that a South American division, called the LA LEAGUE, would be created and would feature eight teams from a sixteen team closed qualifier.
North America and Europe featured the top 9 and 11 teams, respectively from last season's ESL Pro League Season 6, one team from the ESEA Season 27: Premier Finals and two teams from the Season 7 Relegation, which featured the bottom two teams from each league from Season 7 and the two runner-ups from the ESEA Season 27: Premier Finals. The China, Southeast Asia, and India regions were grouped into the Asia group; China and Southeast Asia had 8 teams each and India had twelve teams. The Oceania region featured eight teams. Seven teams from Europe, six teams from North America, one team from Asia, one team from Oceania, and one team from South America will make up the sixteen teams in the Finals.
During the regular season for North America and Europe, each team will play every team in its league in two best-of-ones. The winner of each game will receive three points and the loser of each game will receive zero points. If a game ends to overtime, the winner will receive two points and the loser will receive one point. The top six teams in North America and the top seven teams in Europe by the end of the season from each region will head to the Finals. Teams that placed seventh through ninth in North America and eighth through eleventh in Europe will not head to the playoffs but will secure a spot in next season's EPL. Teams that came in last will automatically be demoted to the Premier Division. The next two bottom teams will go through a relegation phase, in which those teams will be placed in a four team double elimination bracket, along with teams that placed second and third in the ESEA Season 27: Premier Division of their region. The top two teams move on to EPL Season 8. The winner of ESEA Season 27: Premier Division will automatically be invited to EPL Season 8. It would later be announced the Europe's league would feature sixteen teams next season, so Ninjas in Pyjamas and Fnatic would be safe from relegation and be invited next season.
There were also periods in which no matches were played. After week 1, no matches were played for one week due to StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 6 in Ukraine featuring six EPL teams. After a hefty week 2, no matches were played with EPICENTER 2018 featuring four EPL teams. After week 3, no matches were played twelve days due to BLAST Pro Series: Copenhagen 2018 from November 2 to 3 featuring six EPL teams, cs_summit 3 from November 1 to 4 featuring six EPL teams, and Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII - Chicago from November 6 to 11 featuring fourteen EPL teams.
The Finals will feature sixteen teams. Teams will be split into two groups and placed in an eight team, double elimination bracket. The top three teams from each group will move on to the playoffs. The winners of the groups will earn a bye to the semifinals and the other four teams will play in the quarterfinals. Teams play until a winner is decided.
Qualifiers
Season 7 Relegation
Before each season, three spots need to be filled up in each league. The team that came in last place in each league is automatically relegated to the Premier division for the following season, season 27. Meanwhile, the winner of the Premier division's season 26 is automatically promoted to the professional division. For the last two spots, the two runner ups of season 27 of the Premier division will be placed in a four team, best of three, double elimination bracket against the teams that placed twelfth and thirteenth in EPL Season 6. The final two teams are promoted to EPL Season 8 and the other two teams are demoted to ESEA Premier Division Season 28.
North America Relegation
Europe Relegation
Teams
Notes
North America
Broadcast talent
Host
James Banks
Commentators
Tim "brainstorm" Dunne
Conner "Scrawny" Girvan
Mohan "launders" Govindasamy
Jordan "Elfishguy" Mays
Mitch "Pili" Pilipowski
Iain "SnypeR" Turner
Kevin "KaRath" Zhu
Analyst
Joona "natu" Leppänen
Observers
Heather "sapphiRe" Garozzo
DJ "Prius" Kuntz
Standings
The North American standings are shown below. Each team's in-game leader is shown first. Rosters reflect what they look like by the end of the regular season. For instance, Brandon "-Ace" Winn of was benched in favor of Pujan "FNS" Mehta. Therefore, FNS's name is shown in the roster below rather than -Ace's.
MIBR was the first team to qualify for the Finals in just the second week of play after the team defeated NRG Esports in two maps; after losing to , MIBR went on an 8–0 run to clinch a spot. Ghost Gaming clinched its spot a day after MIBR clinched when the Canadian team defeated INTZ eSports. Although on an off week, Renegades and Team Liquid clinched their spots on Odense after went 1–1 in maps against Team EnVyUs and INTZ eSports. NRG eSports clinched in week 4 after winning against the Renegades via forfeit.
Going into the final day, just one spot was open to a flight to Odense. INTZ eSports was the frontrunner with 29 points, but Cloud9 and had 26 points, and had an outside chance with 24 points. Cloud9 faced off against a revitalized NRG eSports, compLexity had to face off against the team that was running away with North America's top spot in MIBR, INTZ went against a Rogue team that was unproven after the FACEIT Major, and against an experienced but inconsistent Luminosity Gaming. It came down to the wire by the end of the day. Cloud9 suffered a loss to NRG while and INTZ defeated their respective opponents, effectively eliminating Cloud9 from Finals contention. was demolished by MIBR shortly after Cloud9 lost, which would not only eliminate compLexity, but give MIBR the top seed in the league. did its job by defeating Luminosity, but INTZ fell to Rogue, which would place both teams at 32 points. However, because INTZ won the head-to-head, four points to two, INTZ won the last spot over . At the bottom of the standings, Rogue was unable to catch up to and was one point shy after splitting the series against INTZ. Meanwhile, Team EnVyUs had the fortune of playing against a Renegades team that was playing out of the country, meaning EnVyUs had a much easier time taking two maps while Luminosity dropped both maps to . This means EnVyUs had a second chance at staying in Pro League after starting the season 1-13 by playing in the relegation phase with Rogue while Luminosity would automatically be demoted to the Premier Division.
1Renegades forfeited both matches to NRG Esports as the team was in Australis in preparation of the Intel Extreme Masters Season XIII – World Championship Asia Minor Oceanic qualifier. However, they decided to play against Team EnVyUs despite the poor connection.
Europe
Broadcast talent
Host
Tres "stunna" Saranthus
Commentators
Alex "Snodz" Byfield
Hugo Byron
Benjamin "Esio" Doughty
Jack "Jacky" Peters
Harry "JustHarry" Russell
Analyst
Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill
Jacob "Pimp" Winneche
Observers
Alex "Rushly" Rush
Standings
The European final standings are shown below. Each team's in-game leaders are shown first. Rosters reflect what they look like by the end of the regular season. For instance, at the beginning of the season, mousesports had Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski on the roster, but he was later replaced by Martin "STYKO" Styk. Therefore, STYKO's name is shown on the mousesports roster below.
Astralis was the first team to clinch a spot as the red hot Danes guaranteed at least one team would be playing in front of its home crowd after HellRaisers overtook FaZe Clan for the number seven spot in the standings. Natus Vincere was close by after taking a map off of AGO Esports. BIG did not play in the third week, but since FaZe Clan only had two maps to play with 31 points, the mixed squad could not catch up to BIG's 44 or North's 41, allowing the Germans and Danes to book a spot at the Finals. G2 Esports clinched the next spot after sweeping AGO Esports. Astralis clinched the first seed after defeating AGO Esports on the final day of the regular season.
Going into the final day, the last two spots were up for grabs with five teams vying for a spot, with mousesports sitting at 37 points, HellRaisers at 36, ex-Space Soldiers at 33, Windigo Gaming at 32, and FaZe Clan at 31. ex-Space Soldiers faced off against a struggling Fnatic, mousesports against an inconsistent Ninjas in Pyjamas, Windigo against the hot and cold North, FaZe against a middle-of-the-pack team in Heroic, and HellRaisers against another inconsistent team in G2. FaZe was demolished be Heroic in the first map, effectively eliminating FaZe from playoff contention. Windigo lost to North, which would eliminate the Bulgarians in their first season in Pro League from Finals contention. mousesports locked up a spot after scraping past Ninjas in Pyjamas. ex-Space Soldiers lost to Fnatic in overtime, meaning that HellRaisers needed to win in regulation to take the last spot. HellRaisers did secure a win, but it was an overtime win, meaning it would need the second map. Fnatic easily took down ex-Space Soldiers, so HellRaisers survived and went to another EPL Finals. Because of Heroic's sweep over FaZe and NiP's one loss to mousesports, this allowed Heroic to jump FaZe and NiP in the standings and securing a spot for next season while the two Swedish teams would need to play in a relegation bracket.
Asia
The Asia finals will feature two teams from China, one team from Southeast Asia, and one team from India. China and Southeast Asia played in an eight team, double elimination, best of three bracket, with the exception of the finals, which was a best of five with the team from the winner's side receiving an automatic 1–0 advantage. India's qualifier was part of the ESL India Premiership 2018 Fall. Teams played in a twelve team group stage, in which each team played each other once. The top four teams move on to the bracket stage in a best of three, four team bracket. The finals will feature a four team, single elimination, best of three bracket.
China
ViCi Gaming had an unexpected run after upsetting TyLoo and MVP PK to take the top seed in the Asia Finals. CyberZen had the same result through a different path, upsetting Asia's two best teams to take the second spot in the China qualifier.
Southeast Asia
After falling to the Singaporean powerhouse B.O.O.T-dream[S]cape, Lucid Dream had a strong and unexpected loser's bracket run, taking down FrostFire and B.O.O.T-dream[S]cape before demolishing Thailand's best in Signature Gaming in the final two maps of the finals.
China and Southeast Asia final standings
Both Asian leagues' standings are shown below. Each team's in-game leaders are shown below.
India
Group stage
The group stage standings are shown below. Rosters are shown in alphabetical order. Teams that placed fifth through eighth earned roughly 1,034.92 each and the teams that placed ninth through twelfth earned roughly 517.46 each.
1 darks1d3 drops out
India Finals
After Nikhil "forsaken" Kumawat was caught cheating and given a five-year ban from the Esports Integrity Coalition and after OpTic Gaming released its OpTic India team, ESL announced that the former OpTic India players would forfeit their spot. ESL announced that 2ez Gaming, the loser to OpTic India in the semifinals, and Slaughter Rage Army, the loser to OpTic India in the finals, would play to determine the final spot in the Asia Finals.
2ez Gaming would scrape past Slaughter Rage Army to take the final spot in the Asia Finals. Team Brutality earned about 1,687, Slaughter Rage Army earned about 3,375, and 2ez Gaming earned about 6,750. OpTic India did not earn any money as a result of being disqualified.
Asia Finals
Prize money was handed out in the Asia finals. The semifinalists earned 7,000 each and the runner-up earned 15,000
ViCi Gaming took the first map over 2ez Gaming 16–12, but the Indians were able to surprise the Asian scene and take a map off of the Chinese with the same 16–12 score. However, ViCi adjusted well and dominated the final map 16–3 to head to the grand finals. Meanwhile, CyberZen nearly blew an 11–4 lead against Lucid Dream, but came up on top 16-12 before shutting down the Thai team 16–3 in the second map. In a close two-game sweep, ViCi took down CyberZen and went to Odense as Asia's representative.
Oceania
The Oceania region featured an eight team, best of three, double elimination bracket. Five teams from Australia and one team from New Zealand were invited and another two teams qualified through online qualifiers. The winners earned a spot in the Odense Finals.
The two expected teams reached the finals, but both teams lost players to the Renegades, with Grayhound Gaming's star AWPer Sean "Gratisfaction"' Kaiwai and ORDER's Jay "liazz" Tregillgas leaving their respective teams to join Oceania's best team playing in North America. After some close games, ORDER was the team to come out on top and headed to Denmark for the Finals.
Oceania standings
The final Oceania standings are shown below. Each team's in-game leader is shown first. The in-game leader for Paradox Gaming is unknown. Second placed earned 15,000, third place earned 9,000, and fourth placed earned 5,000.
Latin America
South America's league was part of ESL Latin American League Season 2. Teams were split up into two groups of four and played a standard GSL, double elimination format. The two finalists played in an offline final in São Paolo, Brazil, and the winner of that series earned a spot in the EPL Season 8 Finals.
Group A
Group B
Isurus Gaming was able to scrape past Imperial e-Sports after an intense third map that saw Imperial have a 12-3 and then a 14–5 lead before Isurus made a huge comeback to win 16–14. Sharks Esports easily took down Team Wild in the first map 16–8, but needed to go to overtime to sweep the series in a 19–16 victory. Sharks and Isurus each had 16-5 wins, but a 16-9 and a close 16–14 win in favor of Sharks allowed the Brazilians to repeat at Latin America champions and head back to another EPL Finals.
South America standings
The final South America standings are shown below.
Finals
The finalized teams are shown below. Each team's HLTV.org ranking for December 3, 2018 – the final rankings before the Finals – is shown next to the team.
Broadcast talent
Desk host
Tres "stunna" Saranthus
Stage host
OJ Borg
Interviewer
James Banks
Commentators
Hugo Byron
Tim "brainstorm" Dunne
Henry "HenryG" Greer
Geordie "Mac" McAleer
Jake "Hysterics" Osypenko
Mitch "pili" Pilipowski
Harry "JustHarry" Russell
Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett
Analysts
Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill
Joona "natu" Leppänen
Jacob "Pimp" Winneche
Observers
Alex "Rushly" Rush
Group stage
The format of the group stage is a two group, eight team, double elimination bracket. The teams that win their brackets will move on to the semifinals while the next two teams will be in the quarterfinals.
Group A
Astralis kicked off the EPL Season 8 Finals by taking down ViCi after a close first half only to put on a show with its signature counter-terrorist side in the second half. HellRaisers put up a 13-2 halftime lead against the Renegades and never looked back after that. G2's struggles continued against Team Liquid after putting up a close first half; Liquid held G2 to one round in the second half to put the French away. BIG took down one of the newest additions to EPL in INTZ eSports in a somewhat close game. Renegades continued its domination over Asian teams by taking down ViCi to send the first team home. After splitting two maps, G2 and INTZ had a long fight that extended to double overtime; G2 shut out INTZ in the second overtime to stay alive despite Kenny "kennyS" Schrub struggling. HellRaisers managed to take the first map against the world's best in Astralis and had a chance to sweep the Danes, but Astralis hung on. Astralis took that momentum in ran over HellRaisers to secure a playoff spot. Liquid stifled BIG in the other winner's semifinals and Liquid and Astralis met once again in tournament. BIG's exceptional season came is a disappointing end as the Germans lost a best of three to the Renegades, losing badly in the maps they lost as BIG's star players in Owen "smooya" Butterfield and Johannes "tabseN" Wodarz did not show up. HellRaisers dominated G2 on the map the international squad won, but G2 had the more important result by taking two maps, both in comeback fashion as Edouard "SmithZz" Dubourdeaux and Kevin "Ex6TenZ" Droolans looked to close out their stints with G2 with success. Astralis had no problem dealing with Liquid again as the Danes swept the North Americas in two maps, including extending their Nuke win streak. In the loser's side, G2 had a chance to take clinch a playoff berth, but it was the newly formed Renegades lineup that came away in the end.
Group B
MIBR started off group B by thrashing its compatriots in Sharks Esports as Leonardo "leo_drunky" Oliveira went the whole map without getting a kill; although he did get two kills, he killed one of his teammates and killed himself to set his kill total back to zero. NRG and North had an extremely close game, but NRG managed to come out in the end after winning four of the last five rounds. Ghost could not keep up its superb EPL season against mousesports as the majority-Canadian team could not get much done on either side of the map. Natus Vincere (Na'Vi) and ORDER played in a sloppy game, but Na'Vi came back from a 10–5 deficit and then again at 14–13 to barely scrape past the Australians to move on in the winner's bracket. Sharks pulled off a massive upset over North, and the win was not a close one as Sharks completely dominated the Danes. In the other lower bracket game, Ghost easily took down ORDER in the first map, but was forced to come back from an 8–13 deficit in the second map as Ghost eliminated the Australians. MIBR and NRG dominated each other's picks, but MIBR came back from a 5–10 deficit and then a 12-15 disadvantage to go on and win in overtime to secure a playoffs spot. Na'Vi was able to win its initial match when, in the past, the win eluded them, but the CIS team was smashed by mousesports as mousesports cruised its way to a playoff berth. Na'Vi easily defeated Sharks in two maps to send South America's representative home. Ghost and NRG had a very close series. NRG barely defeated Ghost in the first map and Ghost had only a slightly easier time in the second map. In the third map, NRG had a comfortable 11-4 halftime lead, but its performance against MIBR nearly replicated itself as Ghost came all the way back to win the game 16–14, thanks in part to Yassine "Subroza" Taoufik's 26 kills. In the final winner's match, MIBR barely defeated mousesports, but then easily took the second map to win the group. In the lower bracket side, Ghost surprisingly took the first map against Na'Vi. In the second map, Na'Vi had a 15–11 lead, but Ghost came back to tie the game; however, Na'Vi was able to win the game in overtime. Na'Vi carried that momentum and took advantage of Ghost's inexperience to easily take the third map and take the final playoff spot.
Playoffs
The two runner-ups from each group will each face off in the quarterfinals. The top seeds in each group will earn automatic berths to the playoffs. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be best of three matches and the finals will be a best of five.
Round of 6
The playoffs started off on Cache, Renegades' map choice and the Australians proved why they like to play on the map after a 14-1 halftime lead. mousesports saw limited success in the second half by getting three rounds, but Renegades had almost zero problems closing out the first map. The next map would prove to be a close one as mousesports took an 8–7 lead by the half. However, Renegades took the next nine of twelve rounds to suddenly take a 14–11 lead and was on the brink of eliminating a strong European team. However, Tomáš "oskar" Šťastný came alive and saved his team as mousesports took the last five rounds to sneak by with a 16–14 win and tied the series. Train was the next map and mousesports ran away with the first half with a 12–3 lead. Renegades started to make a run, but the deficit proved to be too much as mousesports moved on the face Astralis in the semifinals.
Two powerhouses in the Global Offensive scene faced off in the first phase of the playoffs. On the first map, Natus Vincere struggled massively despite Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev's 18 kills to try to aid the Ukrainian-Russian team. Two unexpected players showed up for Liquid as Epitácio "TACO" de Melo, who is mainly known for his support role to help his teammates succeed, and Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken, who had been struggling with health issues, came out on top for Liquid as the North American team cruised. Natus Vincere looked to get back in the groove as Liquid took just a three-round lead by the half. However, Liquid's defense stomped Natus Vincere's terrorist side in the second half and Liquid dismantled the CIS team as TACO would go on to face his former team with Liquid.
Semifinals
The first semifinals match went to Mirage. mousesports took the first two rounds before Astralis struck back with three. mousesports retook the lead at 5–3, but Astralis had a six-round win streak and ended the half with a 9–6 lead. Astralis would extend its lead to 13–6, but the international team came back to make it 13–11. Astralis would then slowly walk away with the victory by taking the last three of four rounds. The next map went to Inferno. mousesports started on the counter-terrorist side, but Astralis's offense would only allow a smattering of mousesports rounds to go through as mousesports could not string consecutive rounds together. The second half showcased the infamous Astralis Inferno counter-terrorist side as the Danes let nothing go through and took the series.
The next went to North America's best versus arguably the best core in Global Offensive history. The first map was not close as Liquid had zero problems on its defensive side as Keith "NAF" Markovic lead the way with his 21 kills. Liquid would carry that momentum into the second map by taking a 12-3 halftime lead on Overpass. MIBR started to show some signs of comeback in the second half, but NAF went huge again with 31 kills and Liquid easily made its way to, again, face off against Astralis in the grand finals.
Grand finals
The grand finals started off Team Liquid starting off very strong as it completely overran the coveted Astralis defense to take an 11-4 halftime lead. Astralis would make it close by taking the first four rounds of the second half, but Liquid followed up with five unanswered rounds of its own to take the first map with relative ease. Liquid had another solid first half after taking a 9–6 lead. However, Astralis's counter-terrorist side finally came alive as Liquid only gained two rounds in the second half and Astralis dominated in that half, including winning seven consecutive rounds. Astralis rode that momentum into the next map as it took 10 rounds on its terrorist side before moving onto its Inferno counter-terrorist side, something that many teams could not break. In this case, it looked like Liquid broke down whatever Astralis's setups and strategies were, something only MIBR could seemingly do, as it tied the game at 11. However, Astralis adjusted and shut down whatever Liquid had to offer and took the last five rounds and took the map. On Dust II, Astralis took a 4–0 lead, but Liquid struck back with five rounds. The teams went back and forth and Liquid came out on top 8-7 by the end of the first half. In the second half, Astralis rocketed to the lead by starting off with a booming seven round win streak to start the second half. That streak would prove too much for the North Americans as Liquid only got two rounds. Astralis took the last two rounds of the map and clinched its second straight EPL title.
With this win, Astralis won four Intel Grand Slam tournaments, meaning it won the first Intel Grand Slam and earned a bonus one million dollars. This win also solidified Astralis even more that it was the best team of 2018.
Finals standings
References
ESL Pro League
2018 in esports
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The Sussex Militia was an auxiliary military force in Sussex on the South Coast of England. From their formal organisation as Trained Bands in 1572 they defended the coastline, watched the Spanish Armada and took an active part in the English Civil War. It was the Sussex Militia who captured the Duke of Monmouth after his unsuccessful Rebellion in 1685. After a long hiatus, the Sussex Militia was reformed in 1778 and provided internal security and home defence in all of Britain's major wars thereafter. It eventually became the Royal Sussex Light Infantry Militia (RSLIM) and also formed the Royal Sussex Militia Artillery. After the Cardwell Reforms the RSLIM became a battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment and saw active service in the Second Boer War. It served as a Special Reserve training unit in World War I. After 1921 the militia had only a shadowy existence until its final abolition in 1953.
Early History
The English militia was descended from the Anglo-Saxon Fyrd, the military force raised from the freemen of the shires under command of their Sheriff. It continued under the Norman kings, notably at the Battle of the Standard (1138). The force was reorganised under the Assizes of Arms of 1181 and 1252, and again by King Edward I's Statute of Winchester of 1285. Under this statute 'Commissioners of Array' would levy the required number of men from each shire. The usual shire contingent was 1000 infantry commanded by a millenar, divided into companies of 100 commanded by centenars or ductores, and subdivided into platoons of 20 led by vintenars. The coastal towns of Sussex forming part of the Cinque Ports also had a legal obligation to supply ships, seamen and marines for the Royal Navy. King Henry VIII strengthened the military capability of the country and in 1539 he called out a 'Great Muster' across the country, when the armed men mustered in the rapes of Sussex amounted to:
City of Chichester: 35 bowmen and 75 billmen (of which 20 and 25 respectively had 'harness' or armour), 8 handgunners, and 18 unarmoured billmen listed as 'aliens' ; Chichester appears to have listed 237 able-bodied men
Rape of Chichester: 559 bowmen and 811 billmen, of which about 278 were armoured
Rape of Arundel: 526 bowmen and 1163 billmen
Rape of Bramber: 123 bowmen and 215 billmen
Rape of Pevensey: 1868 bowmen and 802 billmen
Rape of Hastings: 450 bowmen and 681 billmen
(These figures do not include the Rape of Lewes nor the men who were to be fielded by the great landowners and clergy. The 'aliens' in Chichester include Frenchmen, Dutchmen and Bretons.)
Sussex Trained Bands
The legal basis of the militia was updated by two Acts of 1557 covering musters and the maintenance of horses and armour. The county militia was now under the Lord Lieutenant, assisted by the Deputy Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace (JPs). The entry into force of these Acts in 1558 is seen as the starting date for the organised county militia in England. Although the militia obligation was universal, it was clearly impractical to train and equip every able-bodied man, so after 1572 the practice was to select a proportion of men for the Trained Bands, who were mustered for regular training. The government aimed for 10 days' training a year, with a two-day 'general muster' at Michaelmas, and two 'special musters' lasting four days for detailed training at Easter and Whitsun. When war broke out with Spain training and equipping the militia became a priority. From 1583 counties were organised into groups for training purposes, with emphasis on the invasion-threatened 'maritime' counties including Sussex.
In the 16th Century little distinction was made between the militia and the troops levied by the counties for overseas expeditions. However, the counties usually conscripted the unemployed and criminals rather than the Trained Bandsmen – in 1585 the Privy Council ordered the impressment of able-bodied unemployed men in Surrey (100) and Sussex (150) for the expedition to the Netherlands, but the Queen ordered 'none of her trayned-bands to be pressed'. Replacing the weapons issued to the levies from the militia armouries was a heavy cost on the counties.
Armada
The Armada Crisis in 1588 led to the mobilisation of the trained bands. They were mustered in April when the returns from Sussex indicated that of 7572 able-bodied men in the county 2004 were trained, and a further 2001 were armed but untrained, in addition to the cavalry:
Infantry:
Calivers (the caliver was an early infantry firearm): 360 trained, 682 untrained
Muskets: 600 trained, 237 untrained
Corslets (armoured pikemen): 600 trained, 282 untrained
Bows: 180 trained, 588 untrained
Bills: 264 trained, 212 untrained
Cavalry:
Lancers: 200
Light horsemen: 204
Petronels (the petronel was an early cavalry firearm): 30
The trained bands were called out on 23 July, and shadowed the Armada as it sailed up the English Channel. Four thousand trained bandsmen of Kent were ordered to reinforce those of Sussex if the Armada landed there. But the Armada was defeated at sea and was unable to land any troops: the trained bands were stood down shortly afterwards.
Bishops' Wars
With the passing of the threat of invasion, the trained bands declined in the early 17th Century. Later, King Charles I attempted to reform them into a national force or 'Perfect Militia' answering to the king rather than local control. By 1638 Sussex had 1804 musketeers, 1000 corslets and 160 horsemen, organised by rapes as follows:
Chichester Trained Band
Arundel Trained Band
Bramber Trained Band
Lewes Trained Band
Pevensey Trained Band
Hastings Trained Band
Sussex Trained Band Horse
This system was tested in the Bishops' Wars. On 18 November 1638 all English counties were instructed to muster their trained bands and keep them in readiness. However, the men from the southern counties were not actually used in the King's abortive campaign. In the Second Bishops' War Sussex was ordered in March 1640 to send 600 trained bandsmen to Gravesend to be shipped to Newcastle upon Tyne along with the trained bands of other southern counties to take part in the campaign. In the event, most counties sent 'pressed men' rather than the trained men, and the army was of poor quality.
Civil War
Control of the trained bands was one of the major points of dispute between Charles I and Parliament that led to the English Civil War. However, with a few exceptions neither side made much use of the trained bands during the war beyond securing the county armouries for their own full-time troops. Sussex was one exception, its TBs seeing some action, first when involved in the siege of Portsmouth and Southsea Castle when they were captured for Parliament by Sir William Waller in September 1642. On the night of 15 November a group of Royalists in Chichester overpowered Captain Henry Chitty's company of trained bandsmen guarding the walls and seized their cannon at the North Gate (one of those captured at Portsmouth). Chitty and William Cawley, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Midhurst, fled to Portsmouth while the Royalists secured the trained band armoury. Next day the Royalist High Sheriff of Sussex, Sir Edward Ford, arrived with a force to garrison Chichester. Ford then advanced across Sussex, establishing a garrison at Arundel and moving towards Lewes. However, at Hayward's Heath he encountered the Lewes Trained Band under Herbert Morley, MP for Lewes. Although Ford's force outnumbered the trained bandsmen four-to-one, most of his men were raw country folk levied during his advance, and after a few volleys of musketry they were dispersed by a charge of the foot and horse of the Trained Band. Morley then gathered additional volunteers and recaptured Arundel, afterwards joining Waller, whose army retook Chichester in December 1642.
A year later, in December 1643, Lord Hopton captured Arundel Castle for the Royalists once more, when Catcott's Company of the Sussex TBs was in the garrison. Hearing of the loss of Arundel, Captain Edward Apsley, whose company of the Bramber Trained Band was garrisoning Cowdray House, joined other Sussex Parliamentarians in advancing against Arundel, but he was captured by a Royalist patrol. Waller finally secured Arundel for Parliament after the Battle of Alton and left Morley in command.
As Parliament tightened its grip on the country after the First English Civil War it passed new Militia Acts in 1648 and 1650 that replaced lords lieutenant with county commissioners appointed by Parliament or the Council of State. From now on the term 'Trained Band' began to disappear in most counties. Under the Commonwealth and Protectorate the militia received pay when called out, and operated alongside the New Model Army to control the country. Among the 1648 commissioners for the militia in Sussex were Herbert Morley and his brother-in-law John Fagg, MP for Rye.
During the Scottish invasion of the Third English Civil War in 1651, English county militia regiments were called out to supplement the New Model Army. In August the Sussex Militia was ordered to a rendezvous at Oxford, but was not present at the Battle of Worcester.
After the death of Oliver Cromwell, Fagg was commissioned to raise a regiment of foot by the Rump Parliament in 1659 and was taken prisoner by forces loyal to the military regime when he tried to help Morley to secure Portsmouth for Parliament.
Restoration Militia
After the Stuart Restoration, The King's Sole Right over the Militia Act 1661 and the Militia Act of 1662 re-established the English Militia under the control of the king's lords-lieutenant, the men to be selected by ballot. This was popularly seen as the 'Constitutional Force' to counterbalance a 'Standing Army' tainted by association with the New Model Army that had supported Cromwell's military dictatorship.
The Sussex Militia was called out under Lord Lumley during the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion in 1685. After his defeat at the Battle of Sedgemoor it was a patrol of the Sussex Militia that captured the Duke hiding near Blandford Forum, and hard-riding Sussex Militia officers that brought the news to King James II.
The militia returns for 1697 show that Sussex had two regiments – East and West – amounting to 19 companies, with an independent company at Chichester and two Troops of horse, a total of 1733 foot and 105 horse. The two colonels were John Fagg, now Sir John Fagg, 1st Baronet, MP for Steyning, and Sir William Thomas, 1st Baronet, MP for Sussex. However, the militia was allowed to decline thereafter, especially after the Peace of Utrecht in 1713.
Reformed Militia
Under threat of French invasion during the Seven Years' War a series of Militia Acts from 1757 re-established county militia regiments, the men being conscripted by means of parish ballots (paid substitutes were permitted) to serve for three years. There was a property qualification for officers, who were commissioned by the lord lieutenant. Sussex was given a quota of 800 men to raise, but failed to do so – possibly because the Leader of the Opposition, the Duke of Newcastle, and his Pelham family members were powerful in the county. A patriotic ballad of the time declared:
All over the land they'll find such a stand,
From our English Militia Men ready at hand,
Though in Sussex and Middlesex folks are but fiddlesticks,
While an old fiddlestick has the command
(the 'old fiddlestick' was Newcastle, who was Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex and later of Sussex also). Newcastle had opposed the Militia Acts, but even he felt that Sussex, a county standing right in the path of potential invasion, should raise its men. Nevertheless, the county gentry were apathetic, preferring to pay a large fine instead.
American War of Independence
Sussex remained a defaulter county liable for militia fines throughout the 1760s. It was not until the American War of Independence, when Britain was threatened with invasion by the Americans' allies, France and Spain, that the Sussex Militia was reformed. It was raised and embodied at Chichester on 29 June 1778, the Lord Lieutenant of Sussex, Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, taking personal command as colonel. The force was still unpopular in Sussex: the imposition of the Militia Ballot caused riots in the county, but the officers took over from the parish constables the task of raising subscriptions from those who were liable, and used the money to hire volunteers.
The Sussex Militia were disembodied in March 1783 after the preliminaries of the Treaty of Paris had been signed, ending the war. From 1784 to 1792 the militia were assembled for their 28 days' annual peacetime training, but to save money only two-thirds of the men were actually mustered each year.
French Revolutionary War
The Sussex Militia were re-embodied on 11 March 1792, before Revolutionary France declared war on Britain. During the French Wars the militia were employed anywhere in the country for coast defence, manning garrisons, guarding prisoners of war, and for internal security, while the regulars regarded them as a source of trained men if they could be persuaded to transfer. Their traditional local defence duties were taken over by the part-time Volunteers and mounted Yeomanry.
Supplementary Militia
In a fresh attempt to have as many men as possible under arms for home defence in order to release regulars, the Government created the Supplementary Militia, a compulsory levy of men to be trained in their spare time, and to be incorporated in the Militia in emergency. Sussex's additional quota was fixed at 1160 men, and they were organised into 14 companies. These were mustered on 29 March 1797 for 20 days' training, with three companies at Chichester, two at Arundel, two at Shoreham-by-Sea, one at East Grinstead, three at Horsham and three at Lewes. In 1799 they were formed into a 2nd Regiment, so that the original regiment was numbered 1st. The County Lieutenancy for Sussex ruled that supplementary militiamen were not entitled to a bounty unless they were actually embodied, a ruling that was adopted nationally under an Act of 1802.
Napoleonic Wars
The Sussex Militia was disembodied April 1802 after the Treaty of Amiens. However, the Peace of Amiens was shortlived, and the militia were called out again: the Sussex were embodied on 5 May 1803. They resumed the round of coast defence and garrison duties, and increasingly became a source of recruits for the regulars.
Local Militia
While the established militia were the mainstay of national defence during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, they were supplemented from 1808 by the Local Militia, which were part-time and only to be used within their own districts. These were raised to counter the declining numbers of Volunteers, and if their ranks could not be filled voluntarily the Militia Ballot was employed. There are records of the Pevensey Local Militia being formed in Sussex.
Expedition to Bordeaux
From November 1813 the militia were invited to volunteer for limited overseas service, primarily for garrison duties in Europe. Some of the Sussex Militia volunteered for this service, and were sent to France with a Militia Brigade under the command of the Marquess of Buckingham. They embarked on 10–11 March and landed at Bordeaux just as the war was ending. They returned to England in June.
Long Peace
The Local Militia were abolished after the Battle of Waterloo and the Sussex Militia was disembodied in January 1816. After Waterloo there was another long peace. Although officers continued to be commissioned into the militia and ballots were still held, the regiments were rarely assembled for training and the permanent staffs of sergeants and drummers were progressively reduced. From 4 December 1819 Charles Gordon-Lennox, 5th Duke of Richmond was colonel of the Sussex Militia and during his colonelcy the regiment was redesignated as the Sussex Light Infantry Militia in 1835 and as the Royal Sussex Light Infantry Militia (RSLIM) in 1846.
1852 Reorganisation
The Militia of the United Kingdom was revived by the Militia Act of 1852, enacted during a renewed period of international tension. As before, units were raised and administered on a county basis, and filled by voluntary enlistment (although conscription by means of the Militia Ballot might be used if the counties failed to meet their quotas). Training was for 56 days on enlistment, then for 21–28 days per year, during which the men received full army pay. Under the Act, Militia units could be embodied by Royal Proclamation for full-time home defence service in three circumstances:
1. 'Whenever a state of war exists between Her Majesty and any foreign power'.
2. 'In all cases of invasion or upon imminent danger thereof'.
3. 'In all cases of rebellion or insurrection'.
Artillery Militia
The 1852 Act introduced Artillery Militia units in addition to the traditional infantry regiments. Their role was to man coastal defences and fortifications, relieving the Royal Artillery (RA) for active service. Sussex was one of the counties selected to have a corps, and the Royal Sussex Militia Artillery (RSMA) came into existence on 9 April 1853 by the transfer of 206 volunteers from the RSLIM. It was based at Lewes with the Duke of Richmond as its colonel-in-chief.
Crimean War and Indian Mutiny
War having broken out with Russia in 1854 and an expeditionary force sent to the Crimea, the militia began to be called out for home defence. The RSLIM was embodied from December 1854 to January 1856 and the RSMA from 1 February 1855 to 16 June 1856. Neither served overseas. A number of militia regiments were also called out to relieve regular troops required for India during the Indian Mutiny, and the RSLIM was embodied from 12 November 1857 to February 1861
Thereafter the regiments were called out for their annual training. The Militia Reserve introduced in 1867 consisted of present and former militiamen who undertook to serve overseas in case of war.
Cardwell and Childers Reforms
Under the 'Localisation of the Forces' scheme introduced by the Cardwell Reforms of 1872, the militia were brigaded with their local Regular and Volunteer battalions. For the RSLIM this was in Sub-District No 43 (County of Sussex) in South Eastern District, grouped with the 35th (Royal Sussex) and 107th Regiments of Foot and several Rifle Volunteer Corps. The militia now came under the War Office rather than their county lords lieutenant and battalions had a large cadre of permanent staff (about 30). Around a third of the recruits and many young officers went on to join the Regular Army. The RSLIM's headquarters had moved between Brighton and Chichester at various times in the 19th Century; now it joined the 35th and 107th in a shared depot at Chichester, where the existing barracks were expanded into Roussillon Barracks.
In the Mobilisation Scheme developed in the 1870s, the RSMA's war station was at Newhaven Fort.
The Childers Reforms of 1881 took Cardwell's reforms further, with the linked regular regiments becoming two-battalion regiments and their attached militia formally joining as sequentially numbered battalions. The Cardwell system had envisaged two militia battalions in each regimental district, so the RSLIM was split to form the 3rd and 4th (Royal Sussex Militia) Bns, Royal Sussex Regiment, on 1 July 1881. However, the 3rd and 4th Bns were amalgamated again on 1 April 1890.
Second Boer War
After the disasters of Black Week at the start of the Second Boer War in December 1899, most of the regular army was sent to South Africa, the militia reserve was called out to reinforce them, and many militia units were embodied to replace them for home defence and to garrison certain overseas stations. The 3rd Bn Royal Sussex was embodied on 11 December 1899, and the Sussex Artillery from 1 May to 17 October 1900. As the war continued, additional troops were required in South Africa for line of communication duties. The 3rd Bn volunteered in March 1901 and served in South Africa until the end o the war, receiving the Battle honour South Africa 1901–02..
Special Reserve
After the Boer War, there were moves to reform the Auxiliary Forces (militia, yeomanry and volunteers) to take their place in the six army corps proposed by St John Brodrick as Secretary of State for War. However, little of Brodrick's scheme was carried out. The artillery militia became part of the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA), with the Sussex unit redesignated the Sussex RGA (Militia).
Under the sweeping Haldane Reforms of 1908, the militia was replaced by the Special Reserve, a semi-professional force similar to the previous militia reserve, whose role was to provide reinforcement drafts for regular units serving overseas in wartime. The 3rd (Royal Sussex Militia) Bn became the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment on 14 June 1908.
Although the majority of the officers and men of the Sussex RGA (M) accepted transfer to the Special Reserve Royal Field Artillery (RFA) and the unit became the Sussex Royal Field Reserve Artillery on 24 May 1908, all these units were disbanded in March 1909. Instead the men of the Special Reserve RFA would form Brigade Ammunition Columns for the Regular RFA brigades on the outbreak of war.
World War I
On the outbreak of World War I the Special Reserve was embodied on 4 August and the 3rd Royal Sussex mobilised at Chichester before going to its war station at Dover. Its role throughout the war was to prepare reinforcement drafts of reservists, special reservists, recruits and returning wounded for the regular battalions serving overseas: the 1st Royal Sussex remained in India throughout the war, but the 2nd Bn went to France with the British Expeditionary Force and fought on the Western Front until the Armistice with Germany. The SR battalions' secondary role was as garrison troops in Home Defence and 3rd (Res) Bn moved in May 1915 to Newhaven, where it remained in the Newhaven Garrison for the rest of the war. It was disembodied on 4 August 1919.
Postwar
The SR resumed its old title of Militia in 1921 and then became the Supplementary Reserve in 1924, but almost all militia battalions remained in abeyance after World War I. Until 1939 they continued to appear in the Army List, but they were not activated during World War II and were all formally disbanded in April 1953.
See also
Trained Bands
Militia (English)
Militia (Great Britain)
Militia (United Kingdom)
Special Reserve
Royal Sussex Light Infantry Militia
Royal Sussex Militia Artillery
Royal Sussex Regiment
Footnotes
Notes
References
John Adair, Cheriton 1644: The Campaign and the Battle, Kineton: Roundwood, 1973, ISBN 0-900093-19-6.
Ian F.W. Beckett, The Amateur Military Tradition 1558–1945, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991, ISBN 0-7190-2912-0.
Lindsay Boynton, The Elizabethan Militia 1558–1638, London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1967.
David G. Chandler, Sedgemoor 1685: An Account and an Anthology, London: Anthony Mott, 1985, ISN 0-907746-43-8.
C.G. Cruickshank, Elizabeth's Army, 2nd Edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966.
Capt John Davis, Historical Records of the Second Royal Surrey or Eleventh Regiment of Militia, London: Marcus Ward, 1877.
Brig-Gen Sir James E. Edmonds, History of the Great War: Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1914, Vol I, 3rd Edn, London: Macmillan,1933/Woking: Shearer, 1986, .* Mark Charles Fissell, The Bishops' Wars: Charles I's campaigns against Scotland 1638–1640, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-521-34520-0.
Sir John Fortescue, A History of the British Army, Vol I, 2nd Edn, London: Macmillan, 1910.
Sir John Fortescue, A History of the British Army, Vol II, London: Macmillan, 1899.
Sir John Fortescue, A History of the British Army, Vol III, 2nd Edn, London: Macmillan, 1911.
Sir John Fortescue, A History of the British Army, Vol VI, 1807–1809, London: Macmillan, 1910.
Sir John Fortescue, A History of the British Army, Vol VII, 1809–1810, London: Macmillan, 1912.
J.B.M. Frederick, Lineage Book of British Land Forces 1660–1978, Vol I, Wakefield: Microform Academic, 1984, ISBN 1-85117-007-3.
Lt-Col James Moncrieff Grierson (Col Peter S. Walton, ed.), Scarlet into Khaki: The British Army on the Eve of the Boer War, London: Sampson Low, 1899/London: Greenhill, 1988, ISBN 0-947898-81-6.
Lt-Col H.G. Hart, The New Annual Army List, and Militia List (various dates from 1840).
Col George Jackson Hay, An Epitomized History of the Militia (The Constitutional Force), London:United Service Gazette, 1905.
Richard Holmes, Soldiers: Army Lives and Loyalties from Redcoats to Dusty Warriors, London: HarperPress, 2011, ISBN 978-0-00-722570-5.
Brig E.A. James, British Regiments 1914–18, London: Samson Books, 1978/Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, 2001, ISBN 978-1-84342-197-9.
John Kenyon, The Civil Wars of England, London" Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988, ISBN 0-297-79351-9.
Norman E.H. Litchfield, The Militia Artillery 1852–1909 (Their Lineage, Uniforms and Badges), Nottingham: Sherwood Press, 1987, ISBN 0-9508205-1-2.
F. W. Maitland, The Constitutional History of England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931.
John E. Morris, The Welsh Wars of Edward I, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901 (1968 reprint).
Sir Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, Vol I, 378–1278AD, London: Methuen, 1924/Greenhill 1991, ISBN 1-85367-100-2.
H.G. Parkyn, 'English Militia Regiments 1757–1935: Their Badges and Buttons', Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol 15, No 60 (Winter 1936), pp. 216–248.
John Rushworth, 'Historical Collections: 1640, April', in Historical Collections of Private Passages of State: Volume 3, 1639-40, London, 1721, pp. 1085-1149, at British History Online (accessed 15 May 2021).
Edward M. Spiers, The Army and Society 1815–1914, London: Longmans, 1980, ISBN 0-582-48565-7.
Edward M. Spiers, The Late Victorian Army 1868–1902, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992/Sandpiper Books, 1999, ISBN 0-7190-2659-8.
Instructions Issued by the War Office During November 1915, London: HM Stationery Office.* J.N.P. Watson, Captain-General and Rebel Chief: The Life of James, Duke of Monmouth, London: Allen & Unwin, 1979, ISBN 0-04-920058-5.
J.R. Western, The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century: The Story of a Political Issue 1660–1802, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965.
External sources
British Civil Wars, Commonwealth & Protectorate, 1638–1660 (the BCW Project)
British History Online
Chichester Society
History of Parliament Online
Chris Baker, The Long, Long Trail
Shorehambysea.com
Sussex
Sussex
Military units and formations in Sussex
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The was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011. It is the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.
The plant comprises six separate boiling water reactors originally designed by General Electric (GE), and maintained by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). At the time of the quake, Reactor 4 had been de-fueled while 5 and 6 were in cold shutdown for planned maintenance. Immediately after the earthquake, the remaining reactors 1-3 shut down automatically, and emergency generators came online to control electronics and coolant systems. However, the tsunami following the earthquake quickly flooded the low-lying rooms in which the emergency generators were housed. The flooded generators failed, cutting power to the critical pumps that must continuously circulate coolant water through the reactor core. With the pumps stopped, the reactor cores began to overheat.
At this point, only prompt flooding of the reactors with seawater could have cooled the reactors quickly enough to prevent meltdown. Salt water flooding was delayed because it would ruin the costly reactors permanently. Flooding with seawater was finally commenced only after the government ordered that seawater be used, and at this point it was already too late to prevent meltdown.
As the water boiled away in the reactors and the water levels in the fuel rod pools dropped, the reactor fuel rods began to overheat severely, and to melt down. In the hours and days that followed, Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced full meltdown.
In the intense heat and pressure of the melting reactors, a reaction between the nuclear fuel metal cladding and the remaining water surrounding them produced explosive hydrogen gas. As workers struggled to cool and shut down the reactors, several hydrogen explosions occurred.
Concerns about the repeated small explosions, the atmospheric venting of radioactive gasses, and the possibility of larger explosions led to a -radius evacuation around the plant. During the early days of the accident workers were temporarily evacuated at various times for radiation safety reasons. At the same time, sea water that had been exposed to the melting rods was returned to the sea heated and radioactive in large volumes for several months until recirculating units could be put in place to repeatedly cool and re-use a limited quantity of water for cooling. The earthquake damage and flooding in the wake of the tsunami hindered external assistance. Electrical power was slowly restored for some of the reactors, allowing for automated cooling.
Japanese officials initially assessed the accident as Level 4 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) despite the views of other international agencies that it should be higher. The level was later raised to 5 and eventually to 7, the maximum scale value. The Japanese government and TEPCO have been criticized in the foreign press for poor communication with the public and improvised cleanup efforts. On 20 March, the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano announced that the plant would be decommissioned once the crisis was over.
The Japanese government estimates the total amount of radioactivity released into the atmosphere was approximately one-tenth as much as was released during the Chernobyl disaster. Significant amounts of radioactive material have also been released into ground and ocean waters. Measurements taken by the Japanese government 30–50 km from the plant showed caesium-137 levels high enough to cause concern, leading the government to ban the sale of food grown in the area. Tokyo officials temporarily recommended that tap water should not be used to prepare food for infants. In May 2012, TEPCO reported that at least 900 PBq had been released "into the atmosphere in March last year [2011] alone" although it has been said staff may have been told to lie, and give false readings to try and cover up true levels of radiation.
A few of the plant's workers were severely injured or killed by the disaster conditions resulting from the earthquake. There were no immediate deaths due to direct radiation exposures, but at least six workers have exceeded lifetime legal limits for radiation and more than 300 have received significant radiation doses. Predicted future cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures in the population living near Fukushima have ranged from none to 100 to a non-peer-reviewed "guesstimate" of 1,000. On 16 December 2011, Japanese authorities declared the plant to be stable, although it would take decades to decontaminate the surrounding areas and to decommission the plant altogether. On 5 July 2012, the parliament appointed The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) submitted its inquiry report to the Japanese parliament, while the government appointed Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations of Tokyo Electric Power Company submitted its final report to the Japanese government on 23 July 2012. Tepco admitted for the first time on 12 October 2012 that it had failed to take stronger measures to prevent disasters for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants.
Unit 1 Reactor
Details of the core
F. Tanabe has estimated that the core contained the following materials:
Uranium dioxide 78.3 tons
Zirconium 32.7 tons
Steel 12.5 tons
Boron carbide 590 kilograms
Inconel 1 ton
Cooling problems and first radioactivity release
On 11 March at 14:46 JST, in response to the earthquake, TEPCO successfully scrammed the reactor in Unit 1, shutting down all power-producing nuclear fission chain reactions. Evacuated workers reported violent shaking and burst pipes within the reactor building. At 15:37, the quake's tsunami inundated the plant and all electrical power to the facility was lost, leaving only emergency batteries. Some of the monitoring and control systems were still operational, though Unit 1's batteries had been damaged by the flood waters. At 15:42, TEPCO declared a "Nuclear Emergency Situation" for Units 1 and 2 because "reactor water coolant injection could not be confirmed for the emergency core cooling systems." The alert was temporarily cleared when water level monitoring was restored for Unit 1 but it was reinstated at 17:07 JST. Potentially radioactive steam was released from the primary circuit into the secondary containment area to reduce mounting pressure in the core.
To cool the reactor, operators resorted to the plant's Emergency core-cooling systems (ECCS), including the isolation condensers, and the High Pressure Coolant Injection systems (HPCI). According to NHK, the isolation condenser system had not been activated in the previous 40 years, and no one present had ever witnessed its operation. It was also later discovered that TEPCO had made changes to the system's original design, without approval or notification of NISA. During the crisis, operators couldn't tell if one of the system's valves was open or closed.
About 10 minutes after the earthquake, TEPCO operators removed both of Unit 1's isolation condensers from service, and instead activated the HPCI system. At 15:07, the core spray system was activated to cool the suppression pool. Both systems lost power after the tsunami struck the plant. The tsunami's arrival prevented operators from restarting the isolation condensers for more than 30 minutes. Afterwards, they were operated intermittently. Despite being designed to cool Unit 1 for at least 8 hours, the condensers' limited operation did not reduce the heat in the core and containment vessel.
By midnight, water levels in the reactor were falling and TEPCO gave warnings of the possibility of radioactive releases. In the early hours of 12 March, TEPCO reported that radiation levels were rising in the turbine building for Unit 1. Operators were considering venting some of the mounting pressure into the atmosphere, which could result in the release of some radioactivity. Later that morning, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano stated that the amount of potential radiation would be small and that the prevailing winds were blowing out to sea. Pressure inside Unit 1 continued to rise. At 05:30 JST, it had reached 820 kPa, 2.1 times normal. After isolation cooling had ceased to operate, TEPCO started relieving pressure and injecting water. One employee working inside Unit 1 at this time received a radiation dose of 106 mSv and was later sent to a hospital to have his condition assessed.
Without electricity, needed for water pumps and ventilation fans, rising heat within the containment area led to increasing pressure. In a press release on 12 March at 07:00 JST, TEPCO stated, "Measurement of radioactive material (iodine-131, etc.) by monitoring car indicates increasing value compared to normal level. One of the monitoring posts is also indicating higher than normal level." Dose rates recorded on the main gate rose from 69 n Gy/h (for gamma radiation, equivalent to 69 nSv/h) at 04:00 JST, 12 March, to 866 nGy/h 40 minutes later, before hitting a peak of 0.3855 mSv/h at 10:30 JST. At 13:30 JST, workers detected radioactive caesium-137 and iodine-131 near Reactor 1, a sign that water levels in the coolant system had dropped so low that some of the core's fuel had melted, after being exposed to the air. Cooling water levels had fallen so much that parts of the nuclear fuel rods were exposed and partial melting might have occurred. Radiation levels at the site boundary exceeded the regulatory limits.
On 14 March, radiation levels had continued to increase on the premises, measuring at 02:20 an intensity of 0.751 mSv/h on one location and at 02:40 an intensity of 0.650 mSv/h at another location on the premises. On 16 March, the maximum readings peaked at 10.850 mSv/h.
Hydrogen explosion
At 07:00 JST on 12 March, Prime Minister Naoto Kan asked Daiichi director Masao Yoshida why his workers were not opening the valves to release rising steam pressure within the reactor. Yoshida answered that they could not open the electrical valves because of the power failure and the radiation was too high to send workers to manually open the valves. Nevertheless, with the pressure and temperatures continuing to rise, at 09:15, TEPCO sent workers to begin manually opening the valves. The high radiation slowed the work and the valves were not opened until 14:30.
At 15:36 JST on 12 March, there was an explosion in the reactor building at Unit 1. The side walls of the upper level were blown away, leaving in place only the vertical steel framed gridworks. The roof collapsed, covering the floor and some machinery on the south side. The walls were relatively intact compared to later explosions at Units 3 and 4. Video of the explosion shows that it was primarily directed sideways.
The roof of the building was designed to provide ordinary weather protection for the areas inside, not to withstand the high pressure of an explosion. In the Fukushima I reactors the primary containment consists of "drywell" and "wetwell" concrete structures below the top level, immediately surrounding the reactor pressure vessel. The secondary containment includes the top floor with water-filled pools for storing fresh or irradiated fuel and for storage of irradiated tools and structures.
Experts soon agreed that the cause was a hydrogen explosion. Almost certainly the hydrogen was formed inside the reactor vessel because of falling water levels exposing zircaloy structures/fuel assembly cladding, which then reacted with steam and produced hydrogen, with the hydrogen subsequently vented into the containment building. When the hydrogen reached ignition concentration in the air of the secondary containment building, an ignition source such as a spark triggered a hydrogen-oxygen explosion, blowing out the walls of this building from the inside.
Officials indicated that reactor primary containment had remained intact and that there had been no large leaks of radioactive material, although an increase in radiation levels was confirmed following the explosion. The report of the fact-finding commission states that "There is a possibility that the bottom of the RPV [reactor pressure vessel] was damaged and some of the fuel might have dropped and accumulated on the D/W [dry well] floor (lower pedestal)." The Fukushima prefectural government reported radiation dose rates at the plant reaching 1.015 m Sv/h. The IAEA stated on 13 March that four workers had been injured by the explosion at the Unit 1 reactor, and that three injuries were reported in other incidents at the site. They also reported one worker was exposed to higher-than-normal radiation levels but the level fell below their guidance for emergency situations.
Seawater used for cooling
At 20:05 JST on 12 March, the Japanese government ordered seawater to be injected into Unit 1 in a new effort to cool the reactor core. The treatment had been held as a last resort since it ruins the reactor. TEPCO started seawater cooling at 20:20, adding boric acid as a neutron absorber to prevent a criticality accident. The water would take five to ten hours to fill the reactor core, after which the reactor would cool down in around ten days. The injection of seawater into the reactor pressure vessel was done by fire department trucks. At 01:10 JST on 14 March, injection of seawater was halted for two hours because all available water in the plant pools had run out (similarly, feed to Unit 3 was halted). NISA news reports stated 70% of the fuel rods had been damaged when uncovered.
On 12 March, a new electrical distribution panel was installed in an office adjacent to Unit 1 to supply power via Unit 2 when it was reconnected to the transmission grid two days later. On 21 March, injection of seawater continued, as did repairs to the control instrumentation. On 23 March, it became possible to inject water into the reactor using the feed water system rather than the fire trucks, raising the flow rate from 2 to 18 m3/h (later reduced to 11m3/h, and even further to reduce the build up of contaminated water); on 24 March, electricity was restored to the central operating room.
As of 24 March, the spent fuel pool was "thought to be fully or partially exposed", according to CNN. Pressure in the reactor had increased owing to the seawater injection, resulting in steam being vented, later alleviated by reducing the water flow. Temperature increases were also reportedly temporary. TEPCO condensed some of the steam to water in the spent fuel pool.
It was estimated that as much as 26 tonnes of sea salt may have accumulated in reactor Unit 1 and twice that amount in Units 2 and 3. As salt clogs cooling pipes and erodes zirconium oxide layer of the fuel rods, switching to the use of freshwater for cooling was a high priority.
The use of seawater has the potential to make uranium chemistry more complex; in pure water the hydrogen peroxide formed by the radiolysis of water can react with uranium dioxide to form a solid peroxide mineral known as studtite. According to Navrotsky et al. this mineral has been found in the fuel storage pond at the plutonium production site at Hanford. Navrotsky et al. report that when alkali metal ions are present, uranium can form nanoparticles (U60 clusters) which may be more mobile than the solid studtite. A review of the research done at the University of Notre Dame on the subject of nanoscale actinyl clusters was published in 2010.
Reactor stabilization
By 24 March, electrical power (initially from temporary sources, but off-site power used from 3 April) was being restored to parts of the unit, with the Main Control Room lighting being restored.
On 25 March, fresh water became available again to be added to the reactor instead of salt water, while work continued to repair the unit's cooling systems. A volume of 1890 m3 (500,000 USgal) of fresh water was brought to the plant by a barge provided by the US Navy. On 29 March, the fire trucks which had been used to inject water into the reactor were replaced by electrical pumps.
On 28 March, pumping began to remove water contaminated with radioactive 137Cs and 131I from basement areas, storing it in the condenser system. By 29 March, pumping was halted because condensate reservoirs were almost full and plans were being considered to transfer water to the suppression pool surge tanks.
On 7 April, TEPCO began injecting nitrogen into the containment vessel, which was expected to reduce the likelihood of further hydrogen explosions. The injection has been ongoing since then and has been repeated on the other units at Fukushima. On 7 April, before a large aftershock, temperatures in the reactor core unexpectedly "surged in temperature to 260 °C"; the cause was unknown, but the temperature dropped to 246 °C by 8 April. On 27 April, TEPCO revised its estimate of damaged fuel in Unit 1 from 55% to 70%.
On 17 April, remote control robot was used to enter the Reactor Building and performed a series of inspections, which confirmed on 29 April that there was no significant water leakage coming from the containment vessel.
On 23 and 26 April, concerns that Unit 1 fuel rods may be exposed to air caused TEPCO to consider filling the "containment vessel with water to cool the reactor" despite concerns for building integrity. Efforts were slowed by Unit 1 radiation measurements "as high as 1,120 millisierverts of radiation per hour". On 13 May, TEPCO announced it would proceed with a plan to fill the containment vessel despite the possibility of holes caused by melting fuel elements in the pressure vessel. TEPCO had expected to increase the amount of water pumped to Unit 1 to compensate for any leakage from the holes but decided on 15 May to abandon the plan after finding the Unit 1 basement was already half flooded.
On 5 May, ventilation systems were installed in the Reactor Building, to clean the highly radioactive air encapsulated in it.
On 12 May, the water level gauge for the reactor was calibrated, and it was subsequently identified that the water level was lower than previously thought (as the water level went off the lower side of the gauge).
On 13 May, preparatory work started on the installation of the Reactor Building covers. Construction work started on 28 June.
On 20 May, staff entered the Reactor Building, confirming reactor water level and radioactivity.
Since 2 July, the reactor has been cooled using fresh water from the on-site water treatment plant.
On 21 August, TEPCO reported that all of the temperature sensors of Unit 1 were recording temperatures less than 100 degrees Celsius on Friday 19 August. Once other goals are met, Unit 1 will have achieved cold shutdown state.
On 28 October, TEPCO reported the completion of cover construction at reactor building of Unit 1 of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.
On 19 January 2012, the interior of the primary containment vessel of reactor 2 was inspected by TEPCO for the first time after the accident, with an industrial endoscope. With this device photos were taken and the temperature was measured at this spot and from the cooling-water inside, in an attempt to calibrate the existing temperature-measurements that could have an error margin of 20 °C (36 °F). The procedure lasted 70 minutes. The photos showed parts of the walls and pipes inside the containment vessel, but they were unclear and blurred, most likely due to water vapors and the radiation inside. According to TEPCO the photos showed no serious damage. The temperature measured inside was and did not differ much from the measured outside the vessel.
Possibility of criticality
Reports of 13 observations of neutron beams 1.5 km "southwest of the plant's No. 1 and 2 reactors" from 13 to 16 March raised the possibility that nuclear chain reactions could have occurred after the initial SCRAMing of the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. 16 March reports that fuel rods in the spent fuel pool at Unit 4 could have been exposed to air appeared to indicate that uncontrolled fission may have occurred in that fuel pool. Later reports of exceptionally high iodine-134 levels appeared to confirm this theory because very high levels of iodine-134 would be indicative of criticality. The same report also showed high measurements of chlorine-38, which some nuclear experts used to calculate that self-propagating fission must be occurring in Unit 1. Despite TEPCO suggesting the iodine-134 report was inaccurate, the IAEA appeared to accept the chlorine-based analysis as a valid theory suggesting criticality when it stated at a press conference that "melted fuel in the No. 1 reactor building may be causing isolated, uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions". TEPCO confirmed its concern about the accuracy of the high iodine and chlorine report by formally retracting the report on 21 April, which eliminated both the exceptionally high iodine-134 and chlorine-38 levels as proof of criticality. TEPCO did not appear to comment on the criticality concern when withdrawing its report, but the IAEA has not withdrawn its comments, and some off-site experts find the currently measured iodine-134 levels higher than expected.
Meltdown
On 12 May, TEPCO engineers confirmed that a meltdown occurred, with molten fuel having fallen to the bottom of the reactor's pressure vessel, or RPV. The utility said that fuel rods of the No. 1 reactor are fully exposed, with the water level 1 meter (3.3 feet) below the base of the fuel assembly. According to a Japanese press report, there are holes in the base of the pressure vessel – these holes were meant for the control-rods. After the fuel had melted, it produced holes in the bottom of the RPV, and then escaped into the containment vessel. In November 2011 TEPCO did not know the shape or porosity of the fuel mass, which is at the bottom of the containment vessel. As a result, it is impossible to know exactly how far the fuel mass would have eroded the concrete floor, but TEPCO estimate that no more than 70 cm of a 7.6 meter concrete slab was eroded away by the hot fuel. The production of heat and steam in unit 1 has decreased, as suggested by both radioactive decay calculations and photographic evidence (same source from TEPCO).
TEPCO estimates the nuclear fuel was exposed to the air less than five hours after the earthquake struck. Fuel rods melted away rapidly as the temperature inside the core reached 2,800 °C within six hours. In less than 16 hours, the reactor core melted and dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel, burning a hole through the vessel. By that time, water was pumped into the reactor in an effort to prevent the worst-case scenario – overheating fuel melting its way through the containment and discharging large amounts of radionuclides in the environment. In June the Japanese government confirmed that Unit 1 reactor vessel containment was breached, and pumped cooling water continues to leak months after the disaster.
On 11 October 2012, TEPCO released results of the first direct inspections (by remotely operated camera) of conditions in the interior of the Reactor 1 PCV. These suggest that the initial assumptions concerning the behaviour of the fuel mass during the accident may have been incorrect. In particular, the distribution of radiation levels within the PCV, with peak levels being around the bottom head of the RPV, suggest that the majority of the fuel has in fact been retained within the RPV. Radiation levels are also notably lower around the lower parts of the "Drywell", suggesting that fuel had not reached the bottom of the containment vessel, or damaged the concrete floor slab. There is a further issue in that radiation levels within the water inside the containment are markedly higher than those in the reactor basements, suggesting that either there is limited flow from the PCV to the basement, or that substantial dilution is taking place - raising the issue of what is the flow path for the water.
Spent fuel pool of reactor 1
From 31 March, additional sea water was added to the spent fuel pool, initially by using a concrete pump. Fresh water was used from 14 May. By 29 May water was able to be injected using a temporary pump and the Spent Fuel Pool Cooling (FPC) line.
On 10 August, the spent fuel pool was switched from the water-injection system – that functioned some 5 months – to a circulatory cooling system. For the first time since the 11 March disaster, all four damaged reactors at the plant were using circulatory cooling systems with heat-exchangers.
See also
List of civilian nuclear accidents
Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents
Timeline of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
Comparison of Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear accidents
References
External links
The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission Report website in English
Executive summary of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission Report
Fukushima report: Key points in nuclear disaster report - An outline of key quotes, findings and recommendations from the 88-page executive summary of the Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission's report, as provided by the BBC, 5 July 2012
Webcam Fukushima nuclear power plant I, Unit 1 through Unit 4
Investigation Committee on the accidents at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station of Tokyo Electric Power Company
Schematic drawing of Unit 1 reactor building
TEPCO News Releases, Tokyo Electric Power Company
NISA Information update, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the nuclear safety authority of Japan
JAIF Information update, Japan Atomic International Forum
JAEA Information update, Japan Atomic Energy Agency
IAEA Update on Japan Earthquake, International Atomic Energy Agency
Nature Journal – Specials: Japan earthquake and nuclear crisis
TerraFly Timeline Aerial Imagery of Fukushima Nuclear Reactor after 2011 Tsunami and Earthquake
Documentary photographs: residential damage within "No Go" Zone
In graphics: Fukushima nuclear alert, as provided by the BBC, 9 July 2012
PreventionWeb Japan: 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
"What should we learn from the severe accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant?" by Kenichi Ohmae, Team H2O Project. 28 October 2011
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
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Blackpool Pleasure Beach is an amusement park situated on Blackpool's South Shore, in the county of Lancashire, North West England.
The park was founded in 1896 by A. W. G. Bean and his partner John Outhwaite and has been family owned and operated since its inception. The current managing director is Bean's great-granddaughter Amanda Thompson.
The park is host to many records, including the largest collection of wooden roller coasters of any park in the United Kingdom with four: the Big Dipper, Blue Flyer, Grand National and Nickelodeon Streak. Many of the roller coasters in the park are record-breaking attractions. When it opened in 1994, The Big One was the tallest roller coaster in the world. It was also the steepest, with an incline angle of 65° and the second fastest with a top speed of 74 miles per hour (119 km/h). Currently, the ride holds the record as the tallest roller coaster in the United Kingdom, standing at , with a first drop of . Today, it is still the tallest roller coaster in the UK.
The park was the first in Europe to introduce a fully inverting steel coaster, Revolution and is the last remaining park in the world to still operate a Steeplechase roller coaster. The Grand National is one of only three Möbius loop coasters in existence, where a singular track "loops" around itself, offering a facsimile out-and-back layout and creating a "racing" effect on two parallel tracks. Sir Hiram Maxims Captive Flying Machine is the oldest amusement park ride in Europe having opened in August 1904. At the cost of £15 million, Valhalla was one of the largest and most expensive indoor dark rides in the world. Designed by Sarner and manufactured by Intamin, Valhalla won "Best Water Ride" at the 2018 Golden Ticket awards, an accolade it has held over a consecutive number of years. The park also operates a Nickelodeon Land and the world's only Wallace & Gromit ride, the Thrill-O-Matic. In 2015 the park introduced Red Arrows Sky Force, a Gerstlauer Sky Fly thrill ride which is the first ride of its kind in the United Kingdom. The latest record is taken by Icon, a multi-launch coaster manufactured by Mack Rides in Germany.
History of the Pleasure Beach
Early years (1896–1930)
Pleasure Beach was founded in 1896 by Alderman William George Bean after he failed in his attempt to become an advertising man on New York's Madison Avenue. He returned to the United Kingdom in 1897 and opened two separate amusement parks; one adjacent to Euston Road in Great Yarmouth and another in Blackpool, opposite the tram terminus. The Great Yarmouth amusement park failed to generate much interest and so Bean moved to Blackpool full-time towards the end of the century.
In 1903, Bean, along with local businessman John Outhwaite, purchased 30 acres of land known as the "Watson Estate" which was used to expand the amusement park in Blackpool. The original Pleasure Beach was built on the sand dunes along the promenade and consisted of a few roundabouts, a Bicycle Railway and several Gypsy stalls. Bean and Outhwaite decided to grow the business after visiting Coney Island in the United States. Using a small static fairground in London's Earls Court for inspiration, Bean added more rides and sideshows to the Pleasure Beach which began to garner the attention of holidaymakers. Bean's aim was to establish a fun park of a relative size that would "make adults feel like children again and inspire gaiety of a primarily innocent character".
The first notable attraction of interest to open at Pleasure Beach was Sir Hiram Maxim's Captive Flying Machine, a rotary swing ride designed by the British inventor of the same name in 1904. A Mill Chute water ride followed in 1905, which opened under the name The River Caves of the World. Both of these rides are still operational today. In 1907 the park opened its first wooden roller coaster, which was known as The Scenic Railway. It was during this time that the park began to trade under the name Blackpool Pleasure Beach. In 1909, Bean expanded the Pleasure Beach business by purchasing a second amusement park up the coast in Morecambe under the name West End Amusement Park, which would later become Frontierland, Morecambe. The success of the Morecambe park led to a third amusement park opening four years later in Southport under the name Pleasureland Southport.
Meanwhile, the Pleasure Beach was developed with frequent large scale investments, including The Velvet Coaster, the House of Nonsense, The Joy Wheel and The Whip. Outhwaite died in 1911, leaving most of the remaining business to Bean; however, the Outhwaite family still obtained shares in the park and would occasionally have input into its growth. Following the First World War investment at the park ceased due to the difficulty in exporting rides from the United States and the next investments would not be until 1922 when The Virginia Reel and Noah's Ark opened. Despite the lack of investment, profits at the Pleasure Beach soared, and the company was noted as being one of the most prolific employers in the north-west of England.
Further into the 1920s, Bean invested in the Casino Building, a triple-tiered Art-Deco building designed by local architect and then Blackpool Mayor Alderman R.B. Mather, JP. The exterior of the building featured a white ferroconcrete façade with white electric lighting, and the interior housed a billiard hall, cinema, restaurant and gift shop. Today the Casino Building features a number of function rooms and offices, and the ground floor space is used as the main ticket centre.
In 1923, land was reclaimed from the Blackpool seafront, and it was during this period that the Pleasure Beach moved to its current location along the promenade. The same year Bean brought in John Miller to design and build the Big Dipper, an out-and-back wooden coaster and shortly afterwards a boating pool was built for boat rides. This was Bean's final investment before he died of pneumonia in 1929, having spent 33 years shaping and developing what would become one of the most significant amusement parks in the world. Following his death, his only daughter Lillian-Doris inherited the Pleasure Beach business.
Lillian-Doris Bean married Leonard Thompson, an Oxford Natural Sciences graduate and businessman in 1928. The Thompsons lived in London where Leonard worked at a Swedish Match Company. However, after Bean's death, the couple returned to Blackpool, where decisions regarding the future running of the Pleasure Beach were in discussion. Leonard up until that point had not had any active involvement with the Pleasure Beach whatsoever, however on a mutual agreement with his wife, it was agreed that Thompson would take over the running of the Pleasure Beach and have full responsibility for all its affairs. His first move was to appoint Oscar Haworth as the General Manager and George Palmer as Chairman of the company. Over the next two years, Thompson worked with the Outhwaites to expand the business further, starting with the construction of The Ghost Train which opened in 1930.
Golden years (1931–2004)
In 1931 the remaining Outhwaite family sold their share of the park to the Thompsons, who now had complete control and ownership of the business. The following year Watson Road was built alongside the park, which resulted in the closure of the Velvet Coaster. Thompson's next major investment was the construction of the Fun House in 1934 and The Grand National, a Möbius loop wooden coaster built by celebrated coaster designer Charles Paige in 1935. Paige had designed numerous other rides at the Pleasure Beach, including the Rollercoaster, another wooden coaster that was constructed on the site of The Velvet Coaster in 1933.
The success of Paiges' wooden coasters resulted in a complete reprofiling of the Big Dipper in 1936, which was extended towards the south-westerly side of the park. During this time Thompson hired Joseph Emberton, an award-winning architect who was brought in to redesign the architectural style of the Pleasure Beach rides and buildings. He worked on The Casino Building, Noah's Ark and the Ice Drome, a 2,000-seat ice rink. Emberton continued to design for the Pleasure Beach up to his death in 1956. After which Jack Ratcliffe, who had been involved in the Festival of Britain, was brought in to continue the work. Ratcliffe worked for many years at the park, and much of his work can still be seen today.
Investments steadily decreased during the Second World War; however, the park remained open throughout the year to offer solace to the British public. The park returned to prominence between 1958 and 1961 when The Wild Mouse, Derby Racer and Alice In Wonderland opened and over the next few years the scale of investments increased, with the world's longest Log Flume opening in 1967 and The Goldmine opening four years later. The Walt Disney Company visited the park earlier in the decade, and Pleasure Beach was one of a few parks which became the basis for the first Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California. Walt Disney formed a friendship with Thompson, and the two would regularly inspire one another when developing their respective parks. After many successful years as the managing director of the Pleasure Beach, Leonard Thompson died in 1976, having run the business for 47 years. Following Thompson's death, Doris Thompson was appointed chairman of the business. Their only son, Geoffrey Thompson inherited his father's role and became the new managing director.
William "Geoffrey" Thompson was born in Manchester in 1936. He spent most of his early working life administering the New Era Laundries in London before returning to the family business as head of catering at the Casino Building. He married his wife, Barbara Thompson (née Foxcroft) in 1962 and shortly afterwards they had three children: Amanda, Nicholas and Fiona. Geoffrey invested millions of pounds developing the business, carrying forward his father's legacy, which was for the Pleasure Beach to always be at the forefront of global amusement parks. He hired Keith Ingham to make extensive alterations to the Casino Building which was re-launched as the Wonderful World Building (since then the building has reverted to its original name of the 'Casino'). Thompson's reign saw the opening of the Steeplechase, Avalanche, Revolution and Ice Blast. His most notable investments include The Big One which opened in 1994 and was the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world at the time, and Valhalla which opened in 2000.
Geoffrey was actively involved in promoting tourism in the North West of England. He sat on almost all the relevant agencies, including the English Tourist Board and the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions, and was awarded the Order of the British Empire status along with his mother for their contribution to tourism. In 1986, Blackpool Pleasure Beach Limited became one of the first companies in the United Kingdom to register with the Government Profit Related Pay Unit. Under this scheme, the company agreed that, where profits exceeded £1 million, 10 per cent would be distributed among the permanent staff according to their length of service.
Despite his reputation as a leading businessman in the industry, Thompson often found himself in dispute with Blackpool Council over their decision to allow private traders to operate on land opposite the Pleasure Beach. He also clashed with Morecambe Town Council, who would regularly oppose and disrupt his plans to develop the Morecambe amusement park. As a result of his frustration and due to declining attendance, Thompson closed Frontierland in 2000, which had operated for 91years. Many of the rides were either destroyed, sold or relocated to Thompson's other parks. Further investments followed at the Pleasure Beach, including Spin Doctor in 2002, the Big Blue Hotel in 2003 and Bling, the following year. Geoffrey Thompson died of a heart attack at Blackpool Pleasure Beach on 12 June 2004 while attending a party to celebrate his daughter's wedding. Doris Thompson, MBE OBE died nine days later, on 23 June, the date of her son's funeral.
Later years (2004–Present)
Amanda Thompson, Geoffrey's eldest daughter and a director of the park for over 15years, took over the whole Pleasure Beach business. Nicholas Thompson became the deputy managing director and Fiona Giljé (née Thompson), a fundamental architect, became a senior company director. Amanda had previously risen to prominence as the founder and president of Stageworks Worldwide Productions, which produced numerous stage shows at both the Pleasure Beach and international venues. Like her father and grandmother, Amanda was appointed an OBE for her contribution to tourism. During Amanda's reign, the park has seen vast redevelopment, including a re-branding exercise, as well as the removal of numerous rides including The Whip, Space Invader 2, Turtle Chase, Spin Doctor, Trauma Towers, Noah's Ark, Black Hole, Bling, Wild Mouse and Superbowl. In 2006, the family decided to close Pleasureland Southport which, despite extensive investment and development, had not turned a profit for several years. This move coincided with the closure of Pleasure Beach's Log Flume, Drench Falls and resulted in the introduction of Infusion, the park's first new roller coaster in 13years. Infusion was relocated from Pleasureland, where it had operated under the name of Traumatizer since 1999, and was built on the site of the Log Flume.
In 2011, the Thompson family signed a contract with Viacom, owners of the American-based Nickelodeon brand to open Nickelodeon Land, a 4-acre area situated within the main park. Nickelodeon Land was a £10 million redevelopment of the parks' previous children's area Beaver Creek which closed in 2010. Notable changes include a complete retheme of the Rollercoaster which reopened under the new alias Nickelodeon Streak and the use of the formerly defunct Space Invader 2 building which is now occupied by a pizza restaurant. Many of the other rides were either replaced or repainted and renamed to represent the Nickelodeon brand. In 2013, the park worked alongside Aardman Animations, owners of the Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep brands, who introduced Wallace & Gromit's Thrill-O-Matic, a dark ride which replaced the Gold Mine, and in 2015 the park teamed up with the RAF to open the Red Arrows Skyforce a thrill ride based on the famous air acrobatic team. In 2018 the park opened Icon, a £16.25 million multi-launched coaster built by Mack Rides of Germany and the first roller coaster to be built at the park in over a decade. In 2019 a second hotel Boulevard Hotel was built on the site of the former Star Pub. The hotel features 120 en-suite rooms, two restaurants and ten suites.
Managing directors
Current park
Pleasure Beach is situated on a site along the South Promenade (Ocean Boulevard) area of Blackpool, approximately from Blackpool North Railway Station. It is bordered by the Promenade, Balmoral Road, Bond Street, Burlington Road West and Clifton Drive, and is situated above Watson Road, which is underneath the grounds and runs under a tunnel bridge in the centre of the park. The main Ticket Centre can be found on the ground floor of the Casino Building which is situated to the north of the park. The rest of the ground floor space is taken up by a show bar named The Horseshoe and a large Costa Coffee Café. The second tier of the building, known as the penthouse floor is home to a function suite named The Paradise Room and The White Tower Restaurant, a luxury restaurant overlooking the promenade. Above The Paradise Room is a second Moroccan-themed function room named The Attic. The basement area of the building is taken up by another licensed bar named The Horror Bar and an interactive horror maze named Pasaje del Terror.
Outside The Casino building towards the left of the main entrance is a second theatre named The Globe. The main park can be accessed via a number of turnstiles, each manned by a security ambassador at the north entrance. A separate entrance towards the south end of the park is available for hotel residents only, and a third entrance is situated towards the east side of the park via The Arena. The park is heavily secured by metal gates; however, these gates are occasionally opened to permit large groups of guests into the park during the peak season. The park has five car parks and a coach park. Blackpool Pleasure Beach railway station, the Big Blue Hotel and the Boulevard Hotel are situated towards the south end of the park.
The park is split up into three sections: North Park, Nickelodeon Land and South Park. The main park is divided by separate themed areas. These are North Entrance Plaza, Heidi Strasse, Bean Street FY4, The Watson Overpass and South Entrance Plaza. Many of the rides in the park are built over or under other attractions and buildings, making the Pleasure Beach the most densely populated amusement park in terms of ride space in the world.
Pleasure Beach is the only private company in the United Kingdom not imposed by planning restrictions; however, attractions over in height must meet strict regulations set out by the Civil Aviation Authority. These regulations include the placing of red and white lights at the top of structures and warning signals and beacons to alert airline traffic.
Rides
– Rides located in Nickelodeon Land.
Rollercoasters
Thrill Rides
Water Rides
Family Rides
Other Rides
Past Rides
Entertainment
Hot Ice
A seasonal show performed at The Arena (previously the Ice Drome). The show has been running since 1936 and is produced by Amanda Thompson and choreographed by Oula Jaaskelainen. The most recent production Utopian ran between 4 July and 7 September 2019.
Ken Webster: Mentalist Hypnotist
A seasonal adult comedy hypnotism show performed by veteran hypnotist Ken Webster. Webster's show at the Pleasure Beach is the longest-running comedy hypnosis show in the world, which has played at the resort for over 25 years.
Evolution of Magic
A Las Vegas-style magic and illusion show performed by award-winning magicians Craig Christian and Elizabeth Best. Performed seasonally in The Horseshoe.
Spectacular Dancing Water Show
A £500,000 half an hourly musical water show designed by Aquatique Show International. It features thirty individual jets synchronized to move to different styles of music, and a water cannon capable of shooting water up to 100 feet into the air.
Other attractions
Adventure Golf
A 12-hole course situated on the former Flagstaff Gardens on the promenade. Opened in 2008.
Ripley's Believe It Or Not!
A museum of oddities built across two floors and based on Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Situated along Ocean Boulevard.
Pasaje Del Terror
Interactive horror maze, containing live actors, situated towards the north end of Ocean Boulevard, adjacent to the entrance to Pleasure Beach. Opened in June 1998.
The Arena
A large ice rink situated towards the east of the park. Home to Hot Ice and open year-round.
Accommodation
Big Blue Hotel
A family hotel "The Big Blue Hotel" with a four-star AA rating, situated adjacent to Blackpool Pleasure Beach railway station towards the south end of Ocean Boulevard opened in Spring 2003.
Boulevard Hotel
In 2019 a second hotel the Boulevard Hotel was built on the site of the former Star pub. The hotel features 120 rooms and 10 suites and is the second four-star hotel to be operated by the company.
Recent accolades
Here are a selection of the awards and nominations received over the last decade:
2011: Top Ten Best Theme Parks – Golden Ticket Awards
2011: Big Blue Hotel – Loo of the Year Award
2013: Best Attraction for Groups – Lancashire Tourism Awards
2014: Best Large Tourist Attraction – North West In Bloom
2014: The Arena - Favourite Rink – LAMBCO
2014, 2016: Second-best Seaside Park – Golden Ticket Awards
2014: Best Theme Park in the United Kingdom; 9th Best Theme Park in Europe – Travellers' Choice Awards
2014: Big Blue Hotel – Third-best hotel in the United Kingdom – Travellers' Choice Awards
2016, 2017, 2018, 2021: Valhalla - Best Water Ride in the World – Golden Ticket Awards
Ghosts
Pleasure Beach is alleged to be haunted by several ghosts and over the years there have been a number of high-profile paranormal investigations held within its grounds. The most well-known and reported ghost story involves the Ghost Train ride, which is supposedly haunted by the spirit of a former ride operator named "Cloggy". Other stories involve poltergeist activity in both the gift shop under Sir Hiram Maxim's Captive Flying Machine and The Star pub on Ocean Boulevard. The Arena is also said to be the home of a ghostly presence which inhabits the backstage dressing rooms and tractor bay. The park has featured on many paranormal-related TV shows, including Most Haunted and Great British Ghosts and features in many books written on the subject.
Incidents
There have been several incidents at the park over the years. These incidents include a minor collision between two trains on 'The Big One' roller-coaster and a similar collision on the 'Avalanche' bobsled coaster where passengers suffered only minor bruising, whiplash, cuts and one broken nose.
On 21 July 2000, 11-year-old Christopher Sharrat died after falling from a ride vehicle on the 'Space Invader' roller-coaster. He was reported to have possibly panicked on the dark ride and unfastened his seatbelt. Following an investigation, police were confident that the death was accidental. The ride closed in 2008 and has since relocated to Brean Leisure Park, operating from 2011 as Astro Storm.
On 31 August 2000, 23 people were injured, when two trains collided on The Big One due to a failure with the rides braking system. Twenty-one were taken to hospital.
On 11 August 2009, two trains on The Big Dipper carrying a total of 32 guests collided, resulting in 21 people requiring treatment for injuries ranging from whiplash and broken noses to cut and bruises.
On 14 June 2011, a train on The Big One stopped abruptly, causing a few minor injuries to the occupants. One person was reportedly taken to hospital suffering from whiplash.
On 24 October 2014, 58-year-old Robert Sycamore accompanied his 13-year-old nephew on The Grand National coaster. When the ride returned to the station, Mr Sycamore was found in the bottom of the carriage with neck and back injuries. It is understood he had an underlying back complaint of spondylitis.
In popular culture
In 1997 the Pleasure Beach was the subject of a 6-part fly-on-the-wall BBC documentary which focused on the daily operation of the park. Each episode featured interviews with park management and dealt with the numerous triumphs and hurdles of running the park.
The Big One is featured in the 2001 film The Parole Officer (with the film's protagonist repeatedly vomiting on the riders behind him) and in one episode of A Touch of Frost.
The music video for Simply Red's 1995 UK #1 hit "Fairground" was shot here, as were the videos for The Killers' "Here With Me" and 5 Seconds of Summer's "Try Hard".
The Infusion rollercoaster featured in the 2009 Specsavers advertising campaign.
In 2002 Most Haunted conducted an investigation at the Pleasure Beach.
The Laughing Man was briefly portrayed as a psychotic French clown in Jamie H. Scrutton's 2010 short film His Haunted Laughter. The artist performed in the role of the character.
The park was included in the drama Waterloo Road. Finn Sharkey (Jack McMullen), Lauren Andrews (Darcy Isa), Sambuca Kelly (Holly Kenny) and Tom Clarkson (Jason Done) visit the park.
Popular ITV soap opera Coronation Street was filmed at the park many times over the years.
In 1988 the children's television programme Blue Peter visited the park. Presenters Mark Curry and Yvette Fielding rode the then newly-launched Avalanche coaster and interviewed Doris and Geoffrey Thompson.
Professional Wrestler Darren Kenneth Matthews, most commonly known as William Regal, began his wrestling career at the park at aged 15.
Parts of The Harry Hill Movie were filmed at Pleasure Beach.
An advertising campaign for Irn-Bru featuring a group of goths riding the Revolution roller coaster (then sponsored by the brand) was filmed at the park.
British boy band JLS rode on the Big Dipper in early 2012, singing their hit "Everybody in Love" as they did so. Their ride was filmed and posted online via their official Facebook page.
Kevin Bacon rode the Big One with a young child to advertise EE 4G The advertisement was then aired on national television in May 2014.
The Ghost Train features in Tim Burton's 2016 film Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
The One Show filmed at the park in 2016, for a demonstration on ride dynamics, explaining the shape of the vertical loop on Revolution, and measurements of the G-force pressure accumulated on the Ice Blast ride.
In November 2016 BBC's Strictly Come Dancing featured a segment where contestant Judge Rinder visited the Pleasure Beach and rode the Ice Blast ride.
In 2017, Infusion was featured in Little Boy Blue (TV series) during a scene set in Florida.
In the game Rollercoaster Tycoon this is featured as one of the real parks to use in game alongside Alton Towers added in expansion packs.
Gallery
See also
Pleasureland Southport
Frontierland, Morecambe
Lively Laddie, a famous donkey that worked on the Pleasure Beach
Minirail, a monorail at Expo 67 that shares track and rolling stock with Blackpool, both acquired from the 1964 Swiss National Exhibition.
Wallace and Gromit
Nickelodeon
Alton Towers
References
Further reading
External links
1896 establishments in England
Amusement parks in England
Tourist attractions in Blackpool
Blackpool
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This is a history of nuclear power.
Origins
In 1932, physicist Ernest Rutherford discovered that when lithium atoms were "split" by protons from a proton accelerator, immense amounts of energy were released in accordance with the principle of mass–energy equivalence. However, he and other nuclear physics pioneers Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein believed harnessing the power of the atom for practical purposes anytime in the near future was unlikely. The same year, Rutherford's doctoral student James Chadwick discovered the neutron. Experiments bombarding materials with neutrons led Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie to discover induced radioactivity in 1934, which allowed the creation of radium-like elements. Further work by Enrico Fermi in the 1930s focused on using slow neutrons to increase the effectiveness of induced radioactivity. Experiments bombarding uranium with neutrons led Fermi to believe he had created a new transuranic element, which was dubbed hesperium.
In 1938, German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, along with Austrian physicist Lise Meitner and Meitner's nephew, Otto Robert Frisch, conducted experiments with the products of neutron-bombarded uranium, as a means of further investigating Fermi's claims. They determined that the relatively tiny neutron split the nucleus of the massive uranium atoms into two roughly equal pieces, contradicting Fermi. This was an extremely surprising result; all other forms of nuclear decay involved only small changes to the mass of the nucleus, whereas this process—dubbed "fission" as a reference to biology—involved a complete rupture of the nucleus. Numerous scientists, including Leó Szilárd, who was one of the first, recognized that if fission reactions released additional neutrons, a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction could result. Once this was experimentally confirmed and announced by Frédéric Joliot-Curie in 1939, scientists in many countries (including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Soviet Union) petitioned their governments for support of nuclear fission research, just on the cusp of World War II, for the development of a nuclear weapon.
First nuclear reactor
In the United States, where Fermi and Szilárd had both emigrated, the discovery of the nuclear chain reaction led to the creation of the first man-made reactor, the research reactor known as Chicago Pile-1, which achieved criticality on December 2, 1942. The reactor's development was part of the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to create atomic bombs during World War II. It led to the building of larger single-purpose production reactors, such as the X-10 Pile, for the production of weapons-grade plutonium for use in the first nuclear weapons. The United States tested the first nuclear weapon in July 1945, the Trinity test, with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki taking place one month later.
In August 1945, the first widely distributed account of nuclear energy, the pocketbook The Atomic Age, was released. It discussed the peaceful future uses of nuclear energy and depicted a future where fossil fuels would go unused. Nobel laureate Glenn Seaborg, who later chaired the United States Atomic Energy Commission, is quoted as saying "there will be nuclear powered earth-to-moon shuttles, nuclear powered artificial hearts, plutonium heated swimming pools for SCUBA divers, and much more".
In the same month, with the end of the war, Seaborg and others would file hundreds of initially classified patents, most notably Eugene Wigner and Alvin Weinberg's Patent #2,736,696, on a conceptual light water reactor (LWR) that would later become the United States' primary reactor for naval propulsion and later take up the greatest share of the commercial fission-electric landscape.
The United Kingdom, Canada, and the USSR proceeded to research and develop nuclear energy over the course of the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Electricity was generated for the first time by a nuclear reactor on December 20, 1951, at the EBR-I experimental station near Arco, Idaho, which initially produced about 100 kW.
In 1953, American President Dwight Eisenhower gave his "Atoms for Peace" speech at the United Nations, emphasizing the need to develop "peaceful" uses of nuclear power quickly. This was followed by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 which allowed rapid declassification of U.S. reactor technology and encouraged development by the private sector.
Early years
The first organization to develop nuclear power was the U.S. Navy, with the S1W reactor for the purpose of propelling submarines and aircraft carriers. The first nuclear-powered submarine, , was put to sea in January 1954. The S1W reactor was a Pressurized Water Reactor. This design was chosen because it was simpler, more compact, and easier to operate compared to alternative designs, thus more suitable to be used in submarines. This decision would result in the PWR being the reactor of choice also for power generation, thus having a lasting impact on the civilian electricity market in the years to come.
The United States Navy Nuclear Propulsion design and operation community, under Rickover's style
On June 27, 1954, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant in the USSR became the world's first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for a power grid, producing around 5 megawatts of electric power.
The world's first commercial nuclear power station, Calder Hall at Windscale, England was connected to the national power grid on 27 August 1956. In common with a number of other generation I reactors, the plant had the dual purpose of producing electricity and plutonium-239, the latter for the nascent nuclear weapons program in Britain. It had an initial capacity of 50 MW per reactor (200 MW total), it was the first of a fleet of dual-purpose MAGNOX reactors.
The U.S. Army Nuclear Power Program formally commenced in 1954. Under its management, the 2 megawatt SM-1, at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, was the first in the United States to supply electricity in an industrial capacity to the commercial grid (VEPCO), in April 1957.
The first commercial nuclear station to become operational in the United States was the 60 MW Shippingport Reactor (Pennsylvania), in December 1957.
Originating from a cancelled nuclear-powered aircraft carrier contract, the plant used a PWR reactor design. Its early adoption, technological lock-in, and familiarity among retired naval personnel, established the PWR as the predominant civilian reactor design, that it still retains today in the United States.
In 1957 EURATOM was launched alongside the European Economic Community (the latter is now the European Union). The same year also saw the launch of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The first major accident at a nuclear reactor occurred at the 3 MW SL-1, a U.S. Army experimental nuclear power reactor at the National Reactor Testing Station, Idaho National Laboratory. It was derived from the Borax Boiling water reactor (BWR) design and it first achieved operational criticality and connection to the grid in 1958.
For reasons unknown, in 1961 a technician removed a control rod about 22 inches farther than the prescribed 4 inches. This resulted in a steam explosion which killed the three crew members and caused a meltdown. The event was eventually rated at 4 on the seven-level INES scale.
Another serious accident happened in 1968, when one of the two liquid-metal-cooled reactors on board the underwent a fuel element failure, with the emission of gaseous fission products into the surrounding air. This resulted in 9 crew fatalities and 83 injuries.
Development and early opposition to nuclear power
The total global installed nuclear capacity initially rose relatively quickly, rising from less than 1 gigawatt (GW) in 1960 to 100 GW in the late 1970s, and 300 GW in the late 1980s. Since the late 1980s worldwide capacity has risen much more slowly, reaching 366 GW in 2005. Between around 1970 and 1990, more than 50 GW of capacity was under construction (peaking at over 150 GW in the late 1970s and early 1980s)—in 2005, around 25 GW of new capacity was planned. More than two-thirds of all nuclear plants ordered after January 1970 were eventually cancelled. A total of 63 nuclear units were canceled in the United States between 1975 and 1980.
In 1972 Alvin Weinberg, co-inventor of the light water reactor design (the most common nuclear reactors today) was fired from his job at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Nixon administration, "at least in part" over his raising of concerns about the safety and wisdom of ever larger scaling-up of his design, especially above a power rating of ~500 MWe, as in a loss of coolant accident scenario, the decay heat generated from such large compact solid-fuel cores was thought to be beyond the capabilities of passive/natural convection cooling to prevent a rapid fuel rod melt-down and resulting in then, potential far reaching fission product pluming. While considering the LWR, well suited at sea for the submarine and naval fleet, Weinberg did not show complete support for its use by utilities on land at the power output that they were interested in for supply scale reasons, and would request for a greater share of AEC research funding to evolve his team's demonstrated, Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment, a design with greater inherent safety in this scenario and with that an envisioned greater economic growth potential in the market of large-scale civilian electricity generation.
Similar to the earlier BORAX reactor safety experiments, conducted by Argonne National Laboratory, in 1976 Idaho National Laboratory began a test program focused on LWR reactors under various accident scenarios, with the aim of understanding the event progression and mitigating steps necessary to respond to a failure of one or more of the disparate systems, with much of the redundant back-up safety equipment and nuclear regulations drawing from these series of destructive testing investigations.
During the 1970s and 1980s rising economic costs (related to extended construction times largely due to regulatory changes and pressure-group litigation) and falling fossil fuel prices made nuclear power plants then under construction less attractive. In the 1980s in the U.S. and 1990s in Europe, the flat electric grid growth and electricity liberalization also made the addition of large new baseload energy generators economically unattractive.
The 1973 oil crisis had a significant effect on countries, such as France and Japan, which had relied more heavily on oil for electric generation (39% and 73% respectively) to invest in nuclear power.
The French plan, known as the Messmer plan, was for the complete independence from oil, with an envisaged construction of 80 reactors by 1985 and 170 by 2000.
France would construct 25 fission-electric stations, installing 56 mostly PWR design reactors over the next 15 years, though foregoing the 100 reactors initially charted in 1973, for the 1990s.
In 2019, 71% of French electricity was generated by 58 reactors, the highest percentage by any nation in the world.
Some local opposition to nuclear power emerged in the U.S. in the early 1960s, beginning with the proposed Bodega Bay station in California, in 1958, which produced conflict with local citizens and by 1964 the concept was ultimately abandoned. In the late 1960s some members of the scientific community began to express pointed concerns. These anti-nuclear concerns related to nuclear accidents, nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and radioactive waste disposal. In the early 1970s, there were large protests about a proposed nuclear power plant in Wyhl, Germany. The project was cancelled in 1975 the anti-nuclear success at Wyhl inspired opposition to nuclear power in other parts of Europe and North America. By the mid-1970s anti-nuclear activism gained a wider appeal and influence, and nuclear power began to become an issue of major public protest. In some countries, the nuclear power conflict "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies". In May 1979, an estimated 70,000 people, including then governor of California Jerry Brown, attended a march against nuclear power in Washington, D.C. Anti-nuclear power groups emerged in every country that had a nuclear power programme.
Globally during the 1980s one new nuclear reactor started up every 17 days on average.
Regulations, pricing and accidents
In the early 1970s, the increased public hostility to nuclear power in the United States lead the United States Atomic Energy Commission and later the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to lengthen the license procurement process, tighten engineering regulations and increase the requirements for safety equipment. Together with relatively minor percentage increases in the total quantity of steel, piping, cabling and concrete per unit of installed nameplate capacity, the more notable changes to the regulatory open public hearing-response cycle for the granting of construction licenses, had the effect of what was once an initial 16 months for project initiation to the pouring of first concrete in 1967, escalating to 32 months in 1972 and finally 54 months in 1980, which ultimately, quadrupled the price of power reactors.
Utility proposals in the U.S for nuclear generating stations, peaked at 52 in 1974, fell to 12 in 1976 and have never recovered, in large part due to the pressure-group litigation strategy, of launching lawsuits against each proposed U.S construction proposal, keeping private utilities tied up in court for years, one of which having reached the supreme court in 1978 (see Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. With permission to build a nuclear station in the U.S. eventually taking longer than in any other industrial country, the spectre facing utilities of having to pay interest on large construction loans while the anti-nuclear movement used the legal system to produce delays, increasingly made the viability of financing construction, less certain. By the close of the 1970s it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as dramatically as once believed.
Over 120 reactor proposals in the United States were ultimately cancelled and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. A cover story in the February 11, 1985, issue of Forbes magazine commented on the overall failure of the U.S. nuclear power program, saying it "ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history".
According to some commentators, the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island played a major part in the reduction in the number of new plant constructions in many other countries. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the Three Mile Island accident was the most serious accident in "U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, even though it led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of the nearby community." The regulatory uncertainty and delays eventually resulted in an escalation of construction related debt that led to the bankruptcy of Seabrook's major utility owner, Public Service Company of New Hampshire. At the time, the fourth largest bankruptcy in United States corporate history.
Among American engineers, the cost increases from implementing the regulatory changes that resulted from the TMI accident were, when eventually finalized, only a few percent of total construction costs for new reactors, primarily relating to the prevention of safety systems from being turned off. With the most significant engineering result of the TMI accident, the recognition that better operator training was needed and that the existing emergency core cooling system of PWRs worked better in a real-world emergency than members of the anti-nuclear movement had routinely claimed.
The already slowing rate of new construction along with the shutdown in the 1980s of two existing demonstration nuclear power stations in the Tennessee Valley, United States, when they couldn't economically meet the NRC's new tightened standards, shifted electricity generation to coal-fired power plants. In 1977, following the first oil shock, U.S. President Jimmy Carter made a speech calling the energy crisis the "moral equivalent of war" and prominently supporting nuclear power. However, nuclear power could not compete with cheap oil and gas, particularly after public opposition and regulatory hurdles made new nuclear prohibitively expensive.
In 1982, amongst a backdrop of ongoing protests directed at the construction of the first commercial scale breeder reactor in France, a later member of the Swiss Green Party fired five RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades at the still under construction containment building of the Superphenix reactor. Two grenades hit and caused minor damage to the reinforced concrete outer shell. It was the first time protests reached such heights. After examination of the superficial damage, the prototype fast breeder reactor started and operated for over a decade.
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster occurred on Saturday 26 April 1986, at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR. It is considered as the worst nuclear disaster in history both in terms of cost and casualties. The initial emergency response, together with later decontamination of the environment, ultimately involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion Soviet rubles—roughly US$68 billion in 2019, adjusted for inflation.
According to some commentators, the Chernobyl disaster played a major part in the reduction in the number of new plant constructions in many other countries.
Unlike the Three Mile Island accident the much more serious Chernobyl accident did not increase regulations or engineering changes affecting Western reactors; because the RBMK design, which lacks safety features such as "robust" containment buildings, was only used in the Soviet Union. Over 10 RBMK reactors are still in use today. However, changes were made in both the RBMK reactors themselves (use of a safer enrichment of uranium) and in the control system (preventing safety systems being disabled), amongst other things, to reduce the possibility of a similar accident.
Russia now largely relies upon, builds and exports a variant of the PWR, the VVER, with over 20 in use today.
An international organization to promote safety awareness and the professional development of operators in nuclear facilities, the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), was created as a direct outcome of the 1986 Chernobyl accident. The organization was created with the intent to share and grow the adoption of nuclear safety culture, technology and community, where before there was an atmosphere of cold war secrecy.
Numerous countries, including Austria (1978), Sweden (1980) and Italy (1987) (influenced by Chernobyl) have voted in referendums to oppose or phase out nuclear power.
Nuclear renaissance
In the early 2000s, the nuclear industry was expecting a nuclear renaissance, an increase in the construction of new reactors, due to concerns about carbon dioxide emissions. However, in 2009, Petteri Tiippana, the director of nuclear power plant division in the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, told the BBC that it was difficult to deliver a Generation III reactor project on schedule because builders were not used to working to the exacting standards required on nuclear construction sites, since so few new reactors had been built in recent years.
The Olkiluoto 3 was the first EPR, a modernized PWR design, to start construction. Problems with workmanship and supervision have created costly delays. The reactor is estimated to cost three times the initial estimate and will be delivered over 10 years behind schedule.
In 2018 the MIT Energy Initiative study on the future of nuclear energy concluded that, together with the strong suggestion that government should financially support development and demonstration of new Generation IV nuclear technologies, for a worldwide renaissance to commence, a global standardization of regulations needs to take place, with a move towards serial manufacturing of standardized units akin to the other complex engineering field of aircraft and aviation. At present it is common for each country to demand bespoke changes to the design to satisfy varying national regulatory bodies, often to the benefit of domestic engineering supply firms. The report goes on to note that the most cost-effective projects have been built with multiple (up to six) reactors per site using a standardized design, with the same component suppliers and construction crews working on each unit, in a continuous work flow.
Fukushima Daiichi disaster
Following the Tōhoku earthquake on 11 March 2011, one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, and a subsequent tsunami off the coast of Japan, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant suffered three core meltdowns due to failure of the emergency cooling system for lack of electricity supply. This resulted in the most serious nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident prompted a re-examination of nuclear safety and nuclear energy policy in many countries and raised questions among some commentators over the future of the renaissance.
Germany approved plans to close all its reactors by 2022. Italian nuclear energy plans ended when Italy banned the generation, but not consumption, of nuclear electricity in a June 2011 referendum.
China, Switzerland, Israel, Malaysia, Thailand, United Kingdom, and the Philippines reviewed their nuclear power programs.
In 2011 the International Energy Agency halved its prior estimate of new generating capacity to be built by 2035.
Nuclear power generation had the biggest ever fall year-on-year in 2012, with nuclear power plants globally producing 2,346 TWh of electricity, a drop of 7% from 2011.
This was caused primarily by the majority of Japanese reactors remaining offline that year and the permanent closure of eight reactors in Germany.
Post-Fukushima
The Associated Press and Reuters reported in 2011 the suggestion that the safety and survival of the younger Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant, the closest reactor facility to the epicenter and on the coast, demonstrate that it is possible for nuclear facilities to withstand the greatest natural disasters. The Onagawa plant was also said to show that nuclear power can retain public trust, with the surviving residents of the town of Onagawa taking refuge in the gymnasium of the nuclear facility following the destruction of their town.
In February 2012, the U.S. NRC approved the construction of 2 reactors at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, the first approval in 30 years.
In August 2015, following 4 years of near zero fission-electricity generation, Japan began restarting its nuclear reactors, after safety upgrades were completed, beginning with Sendai Nuclear Power Plant.
By 2015, the IAEA's outlook for nuclear energy had become more promising.
"Nuclear power is a critical element in limiting greenhouse gas emissions," the agency noted, and "the prospects for nuclear energy remain positive in the medium to long term despite a negative impact in some countries in the aftermath of the [Fukushima-Daiichi] accident...it is still the second-largest source worldwide of low-carbon electricity.
And the 72 reactors under construction at the start of last year were the most in 25 years."
, the global trend was for new nuclear power stations coming online to be balanced by the number of old plants being retired. Eight new grid connections were completed by China in 2015.
In 2016, the BN-800 sodium cooled fast reactor in Russia, began commercial electricity generation, while plans for a BN-1200 were initially conceived the future of the fast reactor program in Russia awaits the results from MBIR, an under construction multi-loop Generation research facility for testing the chemically more inert lead, lead-bismuth and gas coolants, it will similarly run on recycled MOX (mixed uranium and plutonium oxide) fuel. An on-site pyrochemical processing, closed fuel-cycle facility, is planned, to recycle the spent fuel/"waste" and reduce the necessity for a growth in uranium mining and exploration. In 2017 the manufacture program for the reactor commenced with the facility open to collaboration under the "International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycle", it has a construction schedule, that includes an operational start in 2020. As planned, it will be the world's most-powerful research reactor.
In 2015, the Japanese government committed to the aim of restarting its fleet of 40 reactors by 2030 after safety upgrades, and to finish the construction of the Generation III Ōma Nuclear Power Plant.
This would mean that approximately 20% of electricity would come from nuclear power by 2030. As of 2018, some reactors have restarted commercial operation following inspections and upgrades with new regulations. While South Korea has a large nuclear power industry, the new government in 2017, influenced by a vocal anti-nuclear movement, committed to halting nuclear development after the completion of the facilities presently under construction.
The bankruptcy of Westinghouse in March 2017 due to US$9 billion of losses from the halting of construction at Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station, in the U.S. is considered an advantage for eastern companies, for the future export and design of nuclear fuel and reactors.
In 2016, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected for its "base case" that world nuclear power generation would increase from 2,344 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2012 to 4,500 TWh in 2040. Most of the predicted increase was expected to be in Asia. As of 2018, there are over 150 nuclear reactors planned including 50 under construction. In January 2019, China had 45 reactors in operation, 13 under construction, and plans to build 43 more, which would make it the world's largest generator of nuclear electricity.
Current prospects
Zero-emission nuclear power is an important part of the climate change mitigation effort. Under IEA Sustainable Development Scenario by 2030 nuclear power and CCUS would have generated 3900 TWh globally while wind and solar 8100 TWh with the ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070. In order to achieve this goal on average 15 GWe of nuclear power should have been added annually on average. As of 2019 over 60 GW in new nuclear power plants was in construction, mostly in China, Russia, Korea, India and UAE. Many countries in the world are considering Small Modular Reactors with one in Russia connected to the grid in 2020.
Countries with at least one nuclear power plant in planning phase include Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, Hungary, India, Kazakhstan, Poland, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan.
The future of nuclear power varies greatly between countries, depending on government policies. Some countries, most notably, Germany, have adopted policies of nuclear power phase-out. At the same time, some Asian countries, such as China and India, have committed to rapid expansion of nuclear power. In other countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, nuclear power is planned to be part of the energy mix together with renewable energy.
Nuclear energy may be one solution to providing clean power while also reversing the impact fossil fuels have had on our climate. These plants would capture carbon dioxide and create a clean energy source with zero emissions, making a carbon-negative process. Scientists propose that 1.8 million lives have already been saved by replacing fossil fuel sources with nuclear power.
the cost of extending plant lifetimes is competitive with other electricity generation technologies, including new solar and wind projects. In the United States, licenses of almost half of the operating nuclear reactors have been extended to 60 years.
The U.S. NRC and the U.S. Department of Energy have initiated research into light water reactor sustainability which is hoped will lead to allowing extensions of reactor licenses beyond 60 years, provided that safety can be maintained, to increase energy security and preserve low-carbon generation sources. Research into nuclear reactors that can last 100 years, known as Centurion Reactors, is being conducted.
As of 2020, a number of US nuclear power plants were cleared by Nuclear Regulatory Commission for operations up to 80 years.
References
Nuclear power
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Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov (; 24 March 1921 – 27 March 2010) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, who was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions (1948, 1950, 1953, 1956, 1959, 1965, 1983, and 1985). Smyslov twice tied for first place at the Soviet Championships (1949, 1955), and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won is an all-time record. In five European Team Championships, Smyslov won ten gold medals.
Smyslov remained active and successful in competitive chess well after the age of sixty. Despite failing eyesight, he remained active in the occasional composition of chess problems and studies until shortly before his death in 2010. Besides chess, he was an accomplished baritone singer.
Early years
Smyslov first became interested in chess at the age of six. His father, Vasily Osipovich Smyslov, worked as an engineering technician and had represented the St. Petersburg Technical Institute in intercollegiate chess competitions. Smyslov's father had also studied chess for a time under the tutelage of Mikhail Chigorin and the senior Smyslov became the boy's first teacher. The elder Smyslov gave his son a copy of Alexander Alekhine's book My Best Games of Chess 1908–1923 and the future world champion would later write that this book became his constant reference. He would also write that "...I was later to read everything that my father had in his library: Dufresne's handbook, separate numbers of the Soviet chess magazines Chess and Chess Sheet, the text-books of Lasker and Capablanca, and the collections of games of Soviet and international tournaments. The games of the great Russian chess master M. I. Chigorin made an indelible impression on me; it was with interest that I read the various declarations on questions of strategy by A. I. Nimzovitch; I studied attentively the genius of prominent Soviet masters."
Smyslov's competitive chess experiences began at the age of 14, when he started taking part in classification tournaments. In 1938, at age 17, Smyslov won the USSR Junior Championship. That same year, he tied for 1st–2nd places in the Moscow City Championship, with 12½/17. However, Smyslov's first attempt at adult competition outside his own city fell short; he placed 12th–13th in the Leningrad–Moscow International tournament of 1939 with 8/17 in an exceptionally strong field. In the Moscow Championship of 1939–40 Smyslov placed 2nd–3rd with 9/13.
War years
In his first Soviet final, the 1940 USSR Chess Championship (Moscow, URS-ch12), he performed exceptionally well for 3rd place with 13/19, finishing ahead of the reigning champion Mikhail Botvinnik. This tournament was the strongest Soviet final up to that time, as it included several players, such as Paul Keres and Vladas Mikėnas, from countries annexed by the USSR, as part of the Nazi–Soviet Pact of 1939.
The Soviet Federation held a further tournament of the top six from the 1940 event, and this was called the 1941 Absolute Championship of the USSR, one of the strongest tournaments ever organized. The format saw each player meet his opponents four times. The players were Botvinnik, Keres, Smyslov, Isaac Boleslavsky, Igor Bondarevsky, and Andor Lilienthal. Smyslov scored 10/20 for third place, behind Botvinnik and Keres. This proved that Smyslov was of genuine world-class Grandmaster strength at age 20, a very rare achievement at that time.
World War II forced a halt to most international chess, but several tournaments involving Soviet players only were still organized. Smyslov was exempted from military service due to being severely nearsighted, and he won the 1942 Moscow Championship outright with a powerful 12/15. At Kuibyshev 1942, he placed second with 8/11. In a strong field at Sverdlovsk 1943, Smyslov tied for 3rd–4th places with 8/14. In the 1943–44 Moscow Championship, Smyslov tied for 3rd–4th with 11½/16. He finished second in the 1944 USSR Championship at Moscow (URS-ch13) with 10½/16. He emerged as champion from the 1944–45 Moscow Championship with 13/16. By this juncture, Smyslov had advanced into the group of the top three Soviet players, along with Botvinnik and Keres, who were playing in Nazi-occupied Europe during the war.
As the war ended, organized chess picked up again. But Smyslov's form hit a serious slump in the immediate post-war period. In the 1945 USSR Championship at Moscow (URS-ch14), Smyslov was in the middle of the very powerful field with 8½/17; the winner was Botvinnik, with Boleslavsky and the new star David Bronstein occupying second and third places. At Tallinn 1945, Smyslov had the worst result of his career, scoring just 6½/15 in a not especially strong field. It was little better in the Moscow Championship of 1945–46, as he could only score 7½/15 for a tie of 7th–11th places, as Bronstein won. Then in the Moscow Championship of 1946, Smyslov scored just 8½/15, for a tie of 3rd–6th places, as Bronstein won again. During this period he scored just 31/62 in those four tournaments, for 50%.
Nevertheless, Smyslov's earlier strong results secured him one of the five Soviet places in the first really strong post-war international tournament, at Groningen, Netherlands, in August 1946. This event, the Howard Staunton Memorial, was won by Botvinnik with 14½/19, half a point ahead of former World Champion Max Euwe. Smyslov finished third with 12½/19, and this confirmed his status as one of the world's top players.
Smyslov found it tough going for the next while, however, once he was back playing in Soviet events. In the next Soviet Championship (URS-ch15, Leningrad 1947), he tied for 3rd–4th places with 12/19, as Keres won. At Pärnu 1947, Smyslov scored 8/13 for a tied 4th–6th places, as Keres won again. At Warsaw 1947, Smyslov scored 6/9 to tie for 2nd–5th places; the winner was Svetozar Gligorić. In the Mikhail Chigorin Memorial tournament, Moscow 1947, Smyslov tied for 3rd–4th places, with 10/15, as Botvinnik won.
His results showed a consistent pattern of high finishes against strong company, but with virtually no tournament championships. Smyslov had never actually won an adult tournament (other than the Moscow City Championship) before he played in the 1948 World Championship Tournament.
World title challenger
Smyslov was one of the five players selected to compete for the 1948 World Chess Championship tournament to determine who should succeed the late Alexander Alekhine as champion. His selection was questioned in some quarters, but this criticism was amply rebutted when he finished second behind Mikhail Botvinnik, with a score of 11/20.
With his second-place finish from the 1948 World Championship, Smyslov was admitted directly into the 1950 Budapest Candidates' tournament without needing to play in qualifying events. Smyslov scored 10/18 for third place, behind Bronstein and Boleslavsky, who tied for first place. Smyslov's third place automatically qualified him into the next Candidates' tournament. He was awarded the International Grandmaster title in 1950 by FIDE on its inaugural list.
After winning the Candidates Tournament in Zürich 1953, with 18/28, two points ahead of Keres, Bronstein, and Samuel Reshevsky, Smyslov played a match with Botvinnik for the title the following year. Sited at Moscow, the match ended in a draw, after 24 games (seven wins each and ten draws), meaning that Botvinnik retained his title.
World Champion
Smyslov again won the Candidates' Tournament at Amsterdam in 1956, which led to another world championship match against Botvinnik in 1957. Assisted by trainers Vladimir Makogonov and Vladimir Simagin, Smyslov won with the score 12½–9½. The following year, Botvinnik exercised his right to a rematch, and won the title back with a final score of 12½–10½. Smyslov later said his health suffered during the return match, as he came down with pneumonia, but he also acknowledged that Botvinnik had prepared very thoroughly. Over the course of the three World Championship matches, Smyslov had won 18 games to Botvinnik's 17 (with 34 draws), and yet he was only champion for a year. Nonetheless Smyslov wrote in his autobiographical games collection Smyslov's Best Games, "I have no reason to complain of my fate. I fulfilled my dream and became the seventh world champion in the history of chess."
Later World Championships
Smyslov did not qualify for another World Championship, but continued to play in World Championship qualifying events. In 1959, he was a Candidate, but finished fourth in the qualifying tournament held in Yugoslavia, which was won by the rising superstar Mikhail Tal. He missed out in 1962, but was back in 1964, following a first-place tie at the Amsterdam Interzonal, with 17/23. However he lost his first-round match to Efim Geller.
In 1983, at the age of 62, he went through to the Candidates' Final (the match to determine who plays the champion, in that case Anatoly Karpov), losing 8½–4½ at Vilnius 1984 to Garry Kasparov, who was 21 at the time, and who went on to beat Karpov to become world champion in 1985. He had beaten Zoltán Ribli 6½–4½ in the semifinal, but drew his quarter-final match against Robert Hübner 7–7, with the advancing player (Smyslov) determined only by the spin of a roulette wheel. His final Candidates' appearance was the Montpellier 1985 tournament, where he did not advance.
Soviet Championships
Smyslov was a frequent competitor at the Soviet Championships and enjoyed some notable successes. In 1940, while still a teenager, he finished third behind Bondarevsky and Lilienthal. At the 13th Championship in 1944, he placed second behind Botvinnik and in 1947, shared third with Bondarevsky, after Keres and Boleslavsky.
He was a joint winner of the contest in 1949 and again in 1955 (with Bronstein and Geller respectively). Whilst the 1949 title was shared, the 1955 title was awarded to Geller after a play-off.
Much later in his career he showed that he could still mount a credible challenge; he took a share of third place in 1969 (behind Petrosian and Polugaevsky) and in 1971, was joint runner-up with Tal, after Savon. He was ranked by FIDE as one of the top 15 players in the world from the late 1940s into the early 1980s, a stretch of almost 40 years.
Post-war tournament record
Smyslov maintained an active tournament schedule throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s, registering many top three finishes in some of the most prestigious tournaments of the period.
In 1950, he was second behind Kotov at Venice and in 1951, won the Chigorin Memorial, held in Leningrad. He shared third place with Botvinnik at Budapest (Maróczy Memorial) in 1952, after Keres and Geller. In 1953, he won a training tournament in Gagra and finished third at Bucharest, behind Tolush and Petrosian. At the 1954–55 edition of the Hastings Congress, he shared first place with Keres. At Zagreb 1955, he was sole winner, two clear points ahead of the field. He continued his winning streak at Moscow's Alekhine Memorial in 1956, a victory shared with his constant rival, Botvinnik. During this period, there were several triumphs in his city of birth, when he shared first place with Bronstein and Spassky at the inaugural edition of the Moscow Central Chess Club international tournament series (sometimes also referred as an Alekhine Memorial) in 1959, was a joint winner in both 1960 (with Kholmov) and 1961 (with Vasiukov), and won outright in 1963.
His good form continued throughout the 1960s. There were shares of second place at Dortmund 1961 (after Taimanov) and at Mar del Plata 1962 (after Polugaevsky). He traveled again to Hastings at the end of 1962 and registered third place behind Gligoric and Kotov. In 1963, he was second at Sochi (Chigorin Memorial) after Polugaevsky. His visit to Havana's Capablanca Memorial in 1964 resulted in a share of first with the East German, Uhlmann. He took outright first at the same tournament the following year. In 1966, there were victories at Mar del Plata and at the Rubinstein Memorial in Polanica Zdroj. In 1967, he was second to Fischer at Monte Carlo, won at Moscow and took second after Stein at the city's Alekhine Memorial tournament. He placed third the same year at the Capablanca Memorial in Havana (after Larsen and Taimanov) and finished third again at Palma de Mallorca 1967 and Monte Carlo 1968, the latter two events both being headed by Larsen and Botvinnik. This was also the year he repeated his previous success at Polanica Zdroj, taking outright first. His next trip to Hastings also ended in triumph, as he took clear first at the 1968–69 edition. The 1960s drew to a close with victory at Monte Carlo 1969 (shared with Portisch) and a share of third place at Skopje 1969 (with Uhlmann and Kholmov, after Hort and Matulović).
While less prolific than in previous decades, Smyslov played many strong tournaments in the 1970s and even into the 1980s and beyond. He was joint runner-up with Hort, Gligoric and Korchnoi at Rovinj/Zagreb 1970, after Fischer. A winner at Amsterdam in 1971, he came third at the Alekhine Memorial (Moscow) the same year, after Karpov and Stein. At Las Palmas 1972, he was second equal with Larsen, behind Portisch and in 1973, topped the Capablanca Memorial in Cienfuegos. First place followed at Reykjavík in 1974 and at the Venice tournament of the same year, he finished second behind Liberzon. Then followed a second place at the Alexander Memorial (Teesside) in 1975 (after Geller), a first place at Szolnok (also 1975), and a multi-way share of second at the large Lone Pine Open of 1976 (Petrosian won). He finished third behind Romanishin and Tal at Leningrad in 1977, when all three eclipsed the efforts of then world champion Anatoly Karpov. In 1978, he won at São Paulo and finished with a share of second at Buenos Aires, after Andersson. As the seventies ended, he took first place at Berlin 1979, this time shared with Csom.
Notable outcomes for 1980 included joint first places at San Miguel (with Browne, Panno, Jaime Emma) and at Copenhagen (the Politiken Cup, with Mikhalchishin). The same year, he finished second at Bar, after Petrosian and second at Baguio, after Torre. At Moscow 1981, he joined Kasparov and Polugaevsky in second place, behind Karpov. A further Hastings visit in 1981–82 resulted in a share of second place, with Speelman, after Kupreichik. He was first at Graz in 1984 and first equal at Copenhagen (Politiken Cup) 1986 with Chernin, Pigusov and Cserna. He played at Reggio Emilia over the New Year of 1986–87 and shared second spot with Hort, Chernin and Spassky, after Ribli. At Hastings in 1988–89, he took a share of third with Gulko and Speelman, behind Short and Korchnoi.
Smyslov remained on FIDE's top 100 list until he was 70 years old. His tournament appearances were fewer in the 1990s, but results included a share of first place at Buenos Aires 1990 and a share of second at Malmö (Sigeman) in 1997, after Hellers.
Team competition
Smyslov represented the Soviet Union a total of nine times at chess Olympiads, from 1952 to 1972 inclusive, excepting only 1962 and 1966. He contributed strongly to team gold medal wins on each occasion he played, winning a total of eight individual medals. His total of 17 Olympiad medals won, including team and individual medals, is an all-time Olympiad record, according to olimpbase.org.
At Helsinki 1952, he played second board, and won the individual gold medal with 10½/13. At Amsterdam 1954, he was again on second board, scored 9/12, and took the individual bronze medal. At Moscow 1956, he scored 8½/13 on second board, but failed to win a medal. At Munich 1958, he made 9½/13 on second board, good for the silver individual medal. At Leipzig 1960, he was dropped to first reserve, and made a great score of 11½/13, which won the gold medal.
After missing out on selection in 1962, he returned for Tel Aviv 1964, on third board, and won the gold medal with 11/13. He missed selection in 1966, but returned with a vengeance for Lugano 1968, and made a phenomenal 11/12 for another gold medal as second reserve. At Siegen 1970, he was first reserve, and scored 8/11 for the bronze medal. His final Olympiad was Skopje 1972, where at age 51 he played third board and scored 11/14, good for the silver medal.
His overall Olympiad score is an imposing 90 points in 113 games (+69−2=42), for 79.6%. This performance is the fifth all-time best for players participating in at least four Olympiads. Smyslov also represented the USSR in five European Team Championships, and emerged with a perfect medals' record: he won five team gold medals and five board gold medals. His total score in these events was (+19−1=15), for 75.7%. From olimpbase.org, here is his European teams' data.
Vienna 1957: board 1, 3½/6 (+2−1=3), board and team gold medals;
Oberhausen 1961: board 5, 8/9 (+7−0=2), board and team gold medals;
Hamburg 1965: board 4, 6/9 (+3−0=6), board and team gold medals;
Kapfenberg 1970: board 5, 5/6 (+4−0=2), board and team gold medals;
Bath, Somerset 1973: board 6, 4/5 (+3−0=2), board and team gold medals.
Smyslov played for the USSR in both the 1970 and 1984 matches against teams representing the Rest of the World. He was on board six at Belgrade in 1970, and on board four at London in 1984, with the Soviets winning both matches.
Final years
In 1991, Smyslov won the inaugural World Senior Chess Championship. With a FIDE rating still around 2400 as of the year 2000, the 80-year old grandmaster participated in what was to be his final tournament, the Klompendans Veterans Vs. Ladies Tournament in Amsterdam. The highlight of the match was his rout of Zsofia Polgar, leaving the all-time record between the two as 5–1=3. Some of the matches were adjourned early as draws due to his failing eyesight, and Smyslov officially retired from competitive play after this tournament. His Elo rating after this event was 2494.
Smyslov died of congestive heart failure in a Moscow hospital on the morning of 27 March 2010, three days after his 89th birthday. Reports circulated that his final years were lived in near-poverty and that he could not afford badly-needed eye surgery. It was also reported that Smyslov and his wife Nadezhda mostly lived off of income from renting their apartment out and that there was nobody around to check up on or care for them.
Legacy
Smyslov was known for his positional style, and, in particular, his precise handling of the endgame, but many of his games featured spectacular tactical shots as well. His opening repertoire was conventional for the 1950s–60s era, featuring mainly the Ruy Lopez and English Opening as White, and the Sicilian Defense and Nimzo-Indian Defense as Black. He made enormous contributions to chess opening theory in many openings, including the English Opening, Grünfeld Defence, and the Sicilian Defence. He has a variation of the Closed Ruy Lopez named after him: the line runs 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 h6. In the Grünfeld Defence, the continuation 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Qb3 dxc4 6.Qxc4 0-0 7.e4 Bg4 8.Be3 Nfd7 is known as the Smyslov Variation and remains a major variation. Smyslov also successfully revived the Fianchetto Defence to the Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 g6) in the 1970s. In the Slav Defence, the sideline 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 dxc4 5.a4 Na6 is named the Smyslov Variation. Finally, a variation of the King's Indian Defense is named after him which proceeds with the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Nf3 0-0 5.Bg5 d6 6.e3.
Stanley Kubrick named a character after him in his film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Opera singer
Smyslov was a baritone singer, and only positively decided upon a chess career after a failed audition with the Bolshoi Theatre in 1950. He occasionally gave recitals during chess tournaments, often accompanied by fellow Grandmaster and concert pianist Mark Taimanov. Smyslov once wrote that he tried to achieve harmony on the chess board, with each piece assisting the others. Smyslov recorded several arias during his life.
Personal life
For more than 50 years Smyslov was married to Nadezhda Smyslova, a woman three years his elder whose first husband was executed during the Stalin's purges in the early 1940s. They met in 1948. Nadezhda had a son from the first marriage, an aspiring chess player who competed at the World Junior Championships. Vasily and Nadezhda had no further children. Nadezhda often accompanied her husband at major tournaments, providing moral support.
Books by Smyslov
Vasily Smyslov (2003) Smyslov's Best Games, Volume 1: 1935–1957 (Moravian Chess Publishing House)
Vasily Smyslov (2003) Smyslov's Best Games, Volume 2: 1958–1995 (Moravian Chess Publishing House)
Vasily Smyslov (1997) Endgame Virtuoso (Cadogan)
Vasily Smyslov (1995) Smyslov's 125 Selected Games (modern edition published by Everyman Chess)
Grigory Levenfish and Vasily Smyslov (1971) Rook Endings (Batsford Edition)
Notable games
Tigran Petrosian vs Vasily Smyslov, USSR Championship, Moscow 1949, Sicilian Defence, Scheveningen Variation (B84), 0–1 The first meeting of two future World Champions goes to Smyslov in a precise positional performance.
Vasily Smyslov vs Efim Geller, USSR Championship, Moscow 1951, Sicilian Defence, Closed Variation (B26), 1–0 Smyslov used the Closed Sicilian periodically throughout his life, and made many important improvements.
Paul Keres vs Vasily Smyslov, Zurich Candidates' Tournament 1953, English Opening: Anglo-Indian Defense. Hedgehog System (A17) 0–1 In a vital late-tournament encounter, Smyslov fights off Keres' very dangerous attack, to put himself in the driver's seat towards winning the tournament.
Vasily Smyslov vs Mikhail Botvinnik, World Championship Match, Moscow 1954, game 9, French Defence, Winawer Variation (C17), 1–0 Smyslov blows up one of the World Champion's favourite variations with a queen sacrifice to score a stunning win.
Mikhail Botvinnik vs Vasily Smyslov, World Championship Match, Moscow 1954, game 14, King's Indian Defence, Fianchetto Variation (E68), 0–1 With one of the deepest pre-game home preparations ever seen, Smyslov unleashes a chain of tactical wizardry, including a queen sacrifice, to record a beautiful win which fundamentally changed the theory in this variation.
Vasily Smyslov vs David Bronstein, Candidates' Tournament, Amsterdam 1956, English Opening (A34), 1–0 The two players were fighting for the right to qualify, late in the tournament, and Smyslov finds a way to come out on top.
Vasily Smyslov vs Mikhail Tal, Candidates' Tournament, Yugoslavia 1959, Sicilian Defence, Najdorf / Opecensky Variation (B92), 1–0 It was their first-ever meeting, and the young star Tal gets a sharp lesson from the veteran.
Robert Fischer vs Vasily Smyslov, Candidates' Tournament, Yugoslavia 1959, Sicilian Defence, Fischer / Sozin Variation (B86), 0–1 The 16-year-old Fischer had honed this opening line into a formidable weapon, but here Smyslov shows him a few new wrinkles.
Vasily Smyslov vs Boris Spassky, Moscow vs Leningrad team match 1960, Alekhine's Defence (B05), 1–0 Spassky tries the unusual Alekhine's Defence and is beaten in fairly short order.
Vasily Smyslov vs Anatoly Karpov, USSR Championship, Leningrad 1971, English Opening / Queen's Gambit (A34), 1–0 Karpov was the young rising star, but here he lasts for only 29 moves against Smyslov, who is 30 years older.
Vasily Smyslov vs Zoltan Ribli, World Championship Candidates Semi-final, London 1983, Queens Gambit, Semi-Tarrasch Defence (), 1-0 The finest game of Smyslov's semi-final win, featuring several sacrifices.
References
Further reading
External links
“Vassily Smyslov (1921-2010)” by Edward Winter
Interview with Vassily Smyslov
Vasily Smyslov – Daily Telegraph obituary
Smyslov's Chess Record
Visa with photo 1962
1921 births
2010 deaths
Burevestnik (sports society) athletes
Chess grandmasters
Chess Olympiad competitors
Chess composers
Chess theoreticians
Sportspeople from Moscow
Russian chess players
Russian chess writers
Russian operatic baritones
Soviet chess players
World chess champions
World Senior Chess Champions
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A recommender system, or a recommendation system (sometimes replacing 'system' with a synonym such as platform or engine), is a subclass of information filtering system that seeks to predict the "rating" or "preference" a user would give to an item.
Recommender systems are used in a variety of areas, with commonly recognised examples taking the form of playlist generators for video and music services, product recommenders for online stores, or content recommenders for social media platforms and open web content recommenders. These systems can operate using a single input, like music, or multiple inputs within and across platforms like news, books, and search queries. There are also popular recommender systems for specific topics like restaurants and online dating. Recommender systems have also been developed to explore research articles and experts, collaborators, and financial services.
Overview
Recommender systems usually make use of either or both collaborative filtering and content-based filtering (also known as the personality-based approach), as well as other systems such as knowledge-based systems. Collaborative filtering approaches build a model from a user's past behavior (items previously purchased or selected and/or numerical ratings given to those items) as well as similar decisions made by other users. This model is then used to predict items (or ratings for items) that the user may have an interest in. Content-based filtering approaches utilize a series of discrete, pre-tagged characteristics of an item in order to recommend additional items with similar properties.
We can demonstrate the differences between collaborative and content-based filtering by comparing two early music recommender systems – Last.fm and Pandora Radio.
Last.fm creates a "station" of recommended songs by observing what bands and individual tracks the user has listened to on a regular basis and comparing those against the listening behavior of other users. Last.fm will play tracks that do not appear in the user's library, but are often played by other users with similar interests. As this approach leverages the behavior of users, it is an example of a collaborative filtering technique.
Pandora uses the properties of a song or artist (a subset of the 400 attributes provided by the Music Genome Project) to seed a "station" that plays music with similar properties. User feedback is used to refine the station's results, deemphasizing certain attributes when a user "dislikes" a particular song and emphasizing other attributes when a user "likes" a song. This is an example of a content-based approach.
Each type of system has its strengths and weaknesses. In the above example, Last.fm requires a large amount of information about a user to make accurate recommendations. This is an example of the cold start problem, and is common in collaborative filtering systems. Whereas Pandora needs very little information to start, it is far more limited in scope (for example, it can only make recommendations that are similar to the original seed).
Recommender systems are a useful alternative to search algorithms since they help users discover items they might not have found otherwise. Of note, recommender systems are often implemented using search engines indexing non-traditional data.
Recommender systems were first mentioned in a technical report as a "digital bookshelf" in 1990 by Jussi Karlgren at Columbia University, and implemented at scale and worked through in technical reports and publications from 1994 onwards by Jussi Karlgren, then at SICS,
and research groups led by Pattie Maes at MIT, Will Hill at Bellcore, and Paul Resnick, also at MIT
whose work with GroupLens was awarded the 2010 ACM Software Systems Award.
Montaner provided the first overview of recommender systems from an intelligent agent perspective. Adomavicius provided a new, alternate overview of recommender systems. Herlocker provides an additional overview of evaluation techniques for recommender systems, and Beel et al. discussed the problems of offline evaluations. Beel et al. have also provided literature surveys on available research paper recommender systems and existing challenges.
Recommender systems have been the focus of several granted patents.
Approaches
Collaborative filtering
One approach to the design of recommender systems that has wide use is collaborative filtering. Collaborative filtering is based on the assumption that people who agreed in the past will agree in the future, and that they will like similar kinds of items as they liked in the past. The system generates recommendations using only information about rating profiles for different users or items. By locating peer users/items with a rating history similar to the current user or item, they generate recommendations using this neighborhood. Collaborative filtering methods are classified as memory-based and model-based. A well-known example of memory-based approaches is the user-based algorithm, while that of model-based approaches is the Kernel-Mapping Recommender.
A key advantage of the collaborative filtering approach is that it does not rely on machine analyzable content and therefore it is capable of accurately recommending complex items such as movies without requiring an "understanding" of the item itself. Many algorithms have been used in measuring user similarity or item similarity in recommender systems. For example, the k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) approach and the Pearson Correlation as first implemented by Allen.
When building a model from a user's behavior, a distinction is often made between explicit and implicit forms of data collection.
Examples of explicit data collection include the following:
Asking a user to rate an item on a sliding scale.
Asking a user to search.
Asking a user to rank a collection of items from favorite to least favorite.
Presenting two items to a user and asking him/her to choose the better one of them.
Asking a user to create a list of items that he/she likes (see Rocchio classification or other similar techniques).
Examples of implicit data collection include the following:
Observing the items that a user views in an online store.
Analyzing item/user viewing times.
Keeping a record of the items that a user purchases online.
Obtaining a list of items that a user has listened to or watched on his/her computer.
Analyzing the user's social network and discovering similar likes and dislikes.
Collaborative filtering approaches often suffer from three problems: cold start, scalability, and sparsity.
Cold start: For a new user or item, there isn't enough data to make accurate recommendations. Note: one commonly implemented solution to this problem is the Multi-armed bandit algorithm.
Scalability: There are millions of users and products in many of the environments in which these systems make recommendations. Thus, a large amount of computation power is often necessary to calculate recommendations.
Sparsity: The number of items sold on major e-commerce sites is extremely large. The most active users will only have rated a small subset of the overall database. Thus, even the most popular items have very few ratings.
One of the most famous examples of collaborative filtering is item-to-item collaborative filtering (people who buy x also buy y), an algorithm popularized by Amazon.com's recommender system.
Many social networks originally used collaborative filtering to recommend new friends, groups, and other social connections by examining the network of connections between a user and their friends. Collaborative filtering is still used as part of hybrid systems.
Content-based filtering
Another common approach when designing recommender systems is content-based filtering. Content-based filtering methods are based on a description of the item and a profile of the user's preferences. These methods are best suited to situations where there is known data on an item (name, location, description, etc.), but not on the user. Content-based recommenders treat recommendation as a user-specific classification problem and learn a classifier for the user's likes and dislikes based on an item's features.
In this system, keywords are used to describe the items, and a user profile is built to indicate the type of item this user likes. In other words, these algorithms try to recommend items similar to those that a user liked in the past or is examining in the present. It does not rely on a user sign-in mechanism to generate this often temporary profile. In particular, various candidate items are compared with items previously rated by the user, and the best-matching items are recommended. This approach has its roots in information retrieval and information filtering research.
To create a user profile, the system mostly focuses on two types of information:
1. A model of the user's preference.
2. A history of the user's interaction with the recommender system.
Basically, these methods use an item profile (i.e., a set of discrete attributes and features) characterizing the item within the system. To abstract the features of the items in the system, an item presentation algorithm is applied. A widely used algorithm is the tf–idf representation (also called vector space representation). The system creates a content-based profile of users based on a weighted vector of item features. The weights denote the importance of each feature to the user and can be computed from individually rated content vectors using a variety of techniques. Simple approaches use the average values of the rated item vector while other sophisticated methods use machine learning techniques such as Bayesian Classifiers, cluster analysis, decision trees, and artificial neural networks in order to estimate the probability that the user is going to like the item.
A key issue with content-based filtering is whether the system can learn user preferences from users' actions regarding one content source and use them across other content types. When the system is limited to recommending content of the same type as the user is already using, the value from the recommendation system is significantly less than when other content types from other services can be recommended. For example, recommending news articles based on news browsing is useful. Still, it would be much more useful when music, videos, products, discussions, etc., from different services, can be recommended based on news browsing. To overcome this, most content-based recommender systems now use some form of the hybrid system.
Content-based recommender systems can also include opinion-based recommender systems. In some cases, users are allowed to leave text reviews or feedback on the items. These user-generated texts are implicit data for the recommender system because they are potentially rich resources of both feature/aspects of the item and users' evaluation/sentiment to the item. Features extracted from the user-generated reviews are improved meta-data of items, because as they also reflect aspects of the item like meta-data, extracted features are widely concerned by the users. Sentiments extracted from the reviews can be seen as users' rating scores on the corresponding features. Popular approaches of opinion-based recommender system utilize various techniques including text mining, information retrieval, sentiment analysis (see also Multimodal sentiment analysis) and deep learning.
Session-based recommender systems
These recommender systems use the interactions of a user within a session to generate recommendations. Session-based recommender systems are used at Youtube and Amazon. These are particularly useful when history (such as past clicks, purchases) of a user is not available or not relevant in the current user session. Domains where session-based recommendations are particularly relevant include video, e-commerce, travel, music and more. Most instances of session-based recommender systems rely on the sequence of recent interactions within a session without requiring any additional details (historical, demographic) of the user. Techniques for session-based recommendations are mainly based on generative sequential models such as Recurrent Neural Networks, Transformers, and other deep learning based approaches
Reinforcement learning for recommender systems
The recommendation problem can be seen as a special instance of a reinforcement learning problem whereby the user is the environment upon which the agent, the recommendation system acts upon in order to receive a reward, for instance, a click or engagement by the user. One aspect of reinforcement learning that is of particular use in the area of recommender systems is the fact that the models or policies can be learned by providing a reward to the recommendation agent. This is in contrast to traditional learning techniques which rely on supervised learning approaches that are less flexible, reinforcement learning recommendation techniques allow to potentially train models that can be optimized directly on metrics of engagement, and user interest.
Multi-criteria recommender systems
Multi-criteria recommender systems (MCRS) can be defined as recommender systems that incorporate preference information upon multiple criteria. Instead of developing recommendation techniques based on a single criterion value, the overall preference of user u for the item i, these systems try to predict a rating for unexplored items of u by exploiting preference information on multiple criteria that affect this overall preference value. Several researchers approach MCRS as a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem, and apply MCDM methods and techniques to implement MCRS systems. See this chapter for an extended introduction.
Risk-aware recommender systems
The majority of existing approaches to recommender systems focus on recommending the most relevant content to users using contextual information, yet do not take into account the risk of disturbing the user with unwanted notifications. It is important to consider the risk of upsetting the user by pushing recommendations in certain circumstances, for instance, during a professional meeting, early morning, or late at night. Therefore, the performance of the recommender system depends in part on the degree to which it has incorporated the risk into the recommendation process. One option to manage this issue is DRARS, a system which models the context-aware recommendation as a bandit problem. This system combines a content-based technique and a contextual bandit algorithm.
Mobile recommender systems
Mobile recommender systems make use of internet-accessing smart phones to offer personalized, context-sensitive recommendations. This is a particularly difficult area of research as mobile data is more complex than data that recommender systems often have to deal with. It is heterogeneous, noisy, requires spatial and temporal auto-correlation, and has validation and generality problems.
There are three factors that could affect the mobile recommender systems and the accuracy of prediction results: the context, the recommendation method and privacy. Additionally, mobile recommender systems suffer from a transplantation problem – recommendations may not apply in all regions (for instance, it would be unwise to recommend a recipe in an area where all of the ingredients may not be available).
One example of a mobile recommender system are the approaches taken by companies such as Uber and Lyft to generate driving routes for taxi drivers in a city. This system uses GPS data of the routes that taxi drivers take while working, which includes location (latitude and longitude), time stamps, and operational status (with or without passengers). It uses this data to recommend a list of pickup points along a route, with the goal of optimizing occupancy times and profits.
Hybrid recommender systems
Most recommender systems now use a hybrid approach, combining collaborative filtering, content-based filtering, and other approaches . There is no reason why several different techniques of the same type could not be hybridized. Hybrid approaches can be implemented in several ways: by making content-based and collaborative-based predictions separately and then combining them; by adding content-based capabilities to a collaborative-based approach (and vice versa); or by unifying the approaches into one model (see for a complete review of recommender systems). Several studies that empirically compare the performance of the hybrid with the pure collaborative and content-based methods and demonstrated that the hybrid methods can provide more accurate
recommendations than pure approaches. These methods can also be used to overcome some of the common problems in recommender systems such as cold start and the sparsity problem, as well as the knowledge engineering bottleneck in knowledge-based approaches.
Netflix is a good example of the use of hybrid recommender systems. The website makes recommendations by comparing the watching and searching habits of similar users (i.e., collaborative filtering) as well as by offering movies that share characteristics with films that a user has rated highly (content-based filtering).
Some hybridization techniques include:
Weighted: Combining the score of different recommendation components numerically.
Switching: Choosing among recommendation components and applying the selected one.
Mixed: Recommendations from different recommenders are presented together to give the recommendation.
Feature Combination: Features derived from different knowledge sources are combined together and given to a single recommendation algorithm. </ref>
Feature Augmentation: Computing a feature or set of features, which is then part of the input to the next technique.
Cascade: Recommenders are given strict priority, with the lower priority ones breaking ties in the scoring of the higher ones.
Meta-level: One recommendation technique is applied and produces some sort of model, which is then the input used by the next technique.
The Netflix Prize
One of the events that energized research in recommender systems was the Netflix Prize. From 2006 to 2009, Netflix sponsored a competition, offering a grand prize of $1,000,000 to the team that could take an offered dataset of over 100 million movie ratings and return recommendations that were 10% more accurate than those offered by the company's existing recommender system. This competition energized the search for new and more accurate algorithms. On 21 September 2009, the grand prize of US$1,000,000 was given to the BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos team using tiebreaking rules.
The most accurate algorithm in 2007 used an ensemble method of 107 different algorithmic approaches, blended into a single prediction. As stated by the winners, Bell et al.:
Predictive accuracy is substantially improved when blending multiple predictors. Our experience is that most efforts should be concentrated in deriving substantially different approaches, rather than refining a single technique. Consequently, our solution is an ensemble of many methods.
Many benefits accrued to the web due to the Netflix project. Some teams have taken their technology and applied it to other markets. Some members from the team that finished second place founded Gravity R&D, a recommendation engine that's active in the RecSys community. 4-Tell, Inc. created a Netflix project–derived solution for ecommerce websites.
A number of privacy issues arose around the dataset offered by Netflix for the Netflix Prize competition. Although the data sets were anonymized in order to preserve customer privacy, in 2007 two researchers from the University of Texas were able to identify individual users by matching the data sets with film ratings on the Internet Movie Database. As a result, in December 2009, an anonymous Netflix user sued Netflix in Doe v. Netflix, alleging that Netflix had violated United States fair trade laws and the Video Privacy Protection Act by releasing the datasets. This, as well as concerns from the Federal Trade Commission, led to the cancellation of a second Netflix Prize competition in 2010.
Performance measures
Evaluation is important in assessing the effectiveness of recommendation algorithms. To measure the effectiveness of recommender systems, and compare different approaches, three types of evaluations are available: user studies, online evaluations (A/B tests), and offline evaluations.
The commonly used metrics are the mean squared error and root mean squared error, the latter having been used in the Netflix Prize. The information retrieval metrics such as precision and recall or DCG are useful to assess the quality of a recommendation method. Diversity, novelty, and coverage are also considered as important aspects in evaluation. However, many of the classic evaluation measures are highly criticized.
Evaluating the performance of a recommendation algorithm on a fixed test dataset will always be extremely challenging as it is impossible to accurately predict the reactions of real users to the recommendations. Hence any metric that computes the effectiveness of an algorithm in offline data will be imprecise.
User studies are rather a small scale. A few dozens or hundreds of users are presented recommendations created by different recommendation approaches, and then the users judge which recommendations are best.
In A/B tests, recommendations are shown to typically thousands of users of a real product, and the recommender system randomly picks at least two different recommendation approaches to generate recommendations. The effectiveness is measured with implicit measures of effectiveness such as conversion rate or click-through rate.
Offline evaluations are based on historic data, e.g. a dataset that contains information about how users previously rated movies.
The effectiveness of recommendation approaches is then measured based on how well a recommendation approach can predict the users' ratings in the dataset. While a rating is an explicit expression of whether a user liked a movie, such information is not available in all domains. For instance, in the domain of citation recommender systems, users typically do not rate a citation or recommended article. In such cases, offline evaluations may use implicit measures of effectiveness. For instance, it may be assumed that a recommender system is effective that is able to recommend as many articles as possible that are contained in a research article's reference list. However, this kind of offline evaluations is seen critical by many researchers. For instance, it has been shown that results of offline evaluations have low correlation with results from user studies or A/B tests. A dataset popular for offline evaluation has been shown to contain duplicate data and thus to lead to wrong conclusions in the evaluation of algorithms. Often, results of so-called offline evaluations do not correlate with actually assessed user-satisfaction. This is probably because offline training is highly biased toward the highly reachable items, and offline testing data is highly influenced by the outputs of the online recommendation module. Researchers have concluded that the results of offline evaluations should be viewed critically.
Beyond accuracy
Typically, research on recommender systems is concerned with finding the most accurate recommendation algorithms. However, there are a number of factors that are also important.
Diversity – Users tend to be more satisfied with recommendations when there is a higher intra-list diversity, e.g. items from different artists.
Recommender persistence – In some situations, it is more effective to re-show recommendations, or let users re-rate items, than showing new items. There are several reasons for this. Users may ignore items when they are shown for the first time, for instance, because they had no time to inspect the recommendations carefully.
Privacy – Recommender systems usually have to deal with privacy concerns because users have to reveal sensitive information. Building user profiles using collaborative filtering can be problematic from a privacy point of view. Many European countries have a strong culture of data privacy, and every attempt to introduce any level of user profiling can result in a negative customer response. Much research has been conducted on ongoing privacy issues in this space. The Netflix Prize is particularly notable for the detailed personal information released in its dataset. Ramakrishnan et al. have conducted an extensive overview of the trade-offs between personalization and privacy and found that the combination of weak ties (an unexpected connection that provides serendipitous recommendations) and other data sources can be used to uncover identities of users in an anonymized dataset.
User demographics – Beel et al. found that user demographics may influence how satisfied users are with recommendations. In their paper they show that elderly users tend to be more interested in recommendations than younger users.
Robustness – When users can participate in the recommender system, the issue of fraud must be addressed.
Serendipity – Serendipity is a measure of "how surprising the recommendations are". For instance, a recommender system that recommends milk to a customer in a grocery store might be perfectly accurate, but it is not a good recommendation because it is an obvious item for the customer to buy. "[Serendipity] serves two purposes: First, the chance that users lose interest because the choice set is too uniform decreases. Second, these items are needed for algorithms to learn and improve themselves".
Trust – A recommender system is of little value for a user if the user does not trust the system. Trust can be built by a recommender system by explaining how it generates recommendations, and why it recommends an item.
Labelling – User satisfaction with recommendations may be influenced by the labeling of the recommendations. For instance, in the cited study click-through rate (CTR) for recommendations labeled as "Sponsored" were lower (CTR=5.93%) than CTR for identical recommendations labeled as "Organic" (CTR=8.86%). Recommendations with no label performed best (CTR=9.87%) in that study.
Reproducibility
Recommender systems are notoriously difficult to evaluate offline, with some researchers claiming that this has led to a reproducibility crisis in recommender systems publications. A recent survey of a small number of selected publications applying deep learning or neural methods to the top-k recommendation problem, published in top conferences (SIGIR, KDD, WWW, RecSys, IJCAI), has shown that on average less than 40% of articles could be reproduced by the authors of the survey, with as little as 14% in some conferences. Overall the studies identify 26 articles, only 12 of them could be reproduced by the authors and 11 of them could be outperformed by much older and simpler properly tuned baselines on off-line evaluation metrics. The articles considers a number of potential problems in today's research scholarship and suggests improved scientific practices in that area.
More recent work on benchmarking a set of the same methods came to qualitatively very different results whereby neural methods were found to be among the best performing methods. Deep learning and neural methods for recommender systems have been used in the winning solutions in several recent recommender system challenges, WSDM, RecSys Challenge.
Moreover neural and deep learning methods are widely used in industry where they are extensively tested. The topic of reproducibility is not new in recommender systems. By 2011, Ekstrand, Konstan, et al. criticized that "it is currently difficult to reproduce and extend recommender systems research results,” and that evaluations are “not handled consistently". Konstan and Adomavicius conclude that "the Recommender Systems research community is facing a crisis where a significant number of papers present results that contribute little to collective knowledge […] often because the research lacks the […] evaluation to be properly judged and, hence, to provide meaningful contributions." As a consequence, much research about recommender systems can be considered as not reproducible. Hence, operators of recommender systems find little guidance in the current research for answering the question, which recommendation approaches to use in a recommender systems. Said & Bellogín conducted a study of papers published in the field, as well as benchmarked some of the most popular frameworks for recommendation and found large inconsistencies in results, even when the same algorithms and data sets were used. Some researchers demonstrated that minor variations in the recommendation algorithms or scenarios led to strong changes in the effectiveness of a recommender system. They conclude that seven actions are necessary to improve the current situation: "(1) survey other research fields and learn from them, (2) find a common understanding of reproducibility, (3) identify and understand the determinants that affect reproducibility, (4) conduct more comprehensive experiments (5) modernize publication practices, (6) foster the development and use of recommendation frameworks, and (7) establish best-practice guidelines for recommender-systems research."
See also
Rating site
Cold start
Collaborative filtering
Collective intelligence
Content discovery platform
Enterprise bookmarking
Filter bubble
Personalized marketing
Preference elicitation
Product finder
Configurator
Pattern recognition
References
Further reading
Books
Kim Falk (January 2019), Practical Recommender Systems, Manning Publications,
Scientific articles
Prem Melville, Raymond J. Mooney, and Ramadass Nagarajan. (2002) Content-Boosted Collaborative Filtering for Improved Recommendations. Proceedings of the Eighteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-2002), pp. 187–192, Edmonton, Canada, July 2002.
.
.
External links
Hangartner, Rick, "What is the Recommender Industry?", MSearchGroove, December 17, 2007.
ACM Conference on Recommender Systems
Recsys group at Politecnico di Milano
Data Science: Data to Insights from MIT (recommendation systems)
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The Imo Incident, also sometimes known as the Imo Mutiny, Soldier's riot or Jingo-gunran in Japan, was a violent uprising and riot in Seoul beginning on July 23, 1882, by soldiers of the Joseon Army who were later joined by disaffected members of the wider Korean population. The revolt broke out in part because of King Gojong's support for reform and modernization. The revolt was also in part, a reaction to Gojong's support for Japanese military advisors. Some sources credit rumors as the spark which ignited violence where many Korean soldiers were worried by the prospect of incorporating Japanese officers in a new army structure. The trigger for the riot is largely attributed to a reaction about unpaid soldiers wages, who found sand and bad rice in soldiers' rations. At the time, soldiers could be paid in rice as it was used in place of currency.
The rioters killed many government officials, destroyed homes of high government ministers and occupied the Changdeokgung. They also turned on the members of the Japanese legation in the city, who barely escaped with the help of the British ship . During the day of rioting, a number of Japanese were killed, including Horimoto Reijo. The rioters also soldiers attacked the home of Min Gyeom-ho who held joint appointments of Minister of Military Affairs and the high-level official of the Agency to Bestow Blessings. They also lynched lord Heungin, Yi Choe-eung and attempted to murder Queen Min even reaching the Royal Palace. The poverty-stricken people of Seoul from Wangsim-li and Itaewon joined in the riot and Queen Min escaped to the home of Min Eung-sik by disguising herself as a lady of the court.
Some explain the flare-up of violence by pointing to provocative policies and conduct by Japanese military advisors who had been training the new Special Skills Force since 1881.
Background
Even before the nineteenth century, Korea pursued a strict policy of isolation. Except for official tributary missions to China and the occasional diplomatic mission to Japan, which after the mid-eighteenth century became fewer and confined to the island of Tsushima, Koreans were prohibited from leaving the country. All foreigners were barred entry into the country except for official Chinese on diplomatic missions, and the Japanese who were only allowed to trade at a small walled compound, the Waegwan, in Pusan. Foreign trade was mainly limited to China, conducted at designated locations along the Korean-Manchurian border and with Japan in Pusan.
Korean Politics
In January 1864, King Cheoljong died without a male heir and King Gojong ascended the throne at the age of 12. However, King Gojong was too young and the new king's father, Yi Ha-ŭng, became the Daewongun or Lord of the Great Court who ruled Korea in his son's name. Originally the term Daewongun referred to any person who was not actually the king but whose son took the throne. With his ascendancy to power the Daewongun initiated a set of reforms designed to strengthen the monarchy at the expense of the yangban class, he also pursued an isolationist policy and was determined to purge the kingdom of any foreign ideas that had infiltrated into the nation. In Korean history, the king's in-laws enjoyed great power and the Daewongun acknowledged that any future sons-in-law might threaten his authority. Therefore, he attempted to prevent any possible threat to his rule by selecting as a new queen for his son, an orphaned girl from among the Yŏhŭng Min clan, a clan which lacked powerful political connections. With Queen Min as his daughter-in-law and the royal consort, the Daewongun felt secure in his power. However, after she had become queen, Min recruited all her relatives and had them appointed to influential positions in the name of the king. The Queen also allied herself with the Daewongun's political enemies, so that by late 1873 she had mobilized enough influence to oust the Daewongun from power. In October 1873, when the Confucian scholar Choe Ik-hyeon submitted a memorial to King Gojong urging him to rule in his own right, Queen Min seized the opportunity to force her father-in-law's retirement as regent. The departure of the Daewongun led to Korea's abandonment of its isolationist policy. Subsequently, the Treaty of Ganghwa in 1876 had led to the opening of Korea.
Implementation of the enlightenment policy
The Korean government immediately after the opening of the country to the outside world, pursued a policy of enlightenment aimed at achieving national prosperity and military strength through the doctrine of tongdo sŏgi, or Eastern ways and Western machines. To modernize their country, the Koreans tried selectively to accept and master Western technology while preserving their country's cultural values and heritage. After the Treaty of Ganghwa was signed, the court dispatched Kim Ki-su, a respected scholar and official to head a mission to Japan. Although Korean kings had sent emissaries to Japan in the past, this was the first such mission since 1810. Kim met a number of officials who showed him some of Japan's reforms and he reluctantly meet with the Japanese emperor. However, Kim left Japan without its modernization and reforms leaving much of an impression on him, and rather than using the trip as an opportunity to introduce Korea to the rapidly changing world as demonstrated by Japanese reform efforts, the mission was treated as one of the occasional missions sent to Japan in the interests of "kyorin" (neighborly relations). Kim Ki-su did present the King with the journal of his observations, titled Iltong kiyu (Record of a Journey to Japan)
It was another four years before the King sent another mission, in 1880. The mission was headed by Kim Hong-jip, who was a more enthusiastic observer of the reforms taking place in Japan. While in Japan, the Chinese diplomat Huang Zunxian presented him with a study called Chaoxian Celue (A Strategy for Korea). It warned of the threat to Korea posed by the Russians and recommended that Korea maintain friendly relations with Japan, which was at the time too economically weak to be an immediate threat, to work closely with China, and seek an alliance with the United States as a counterweight to Russia. After returning to Korea, Kim presented the document to King Gojong, who was so impressed with the document that he had copies made and distributed to his officials. Many conservatives were outraged by the proposal to seek alliance with Western barbarians or even to maintain friendly relations with Japan. Some even plotted a coup, the King responded by executing one prominent official and banishing others. The document became the basis of Korean foreign policy.
In January 1881, the government launched administrative reforms and established the T'ongni kimu amun(Office for Extraordinary State Affairs) which was modeled on Chinese administrative structures. Under this overarching organization were 12 sa or agencies, dealing with relations with China (Sadae), diplomatic matters involving other foreign nations (Kyorin), military affairs (Kunmu), border administration (Pyŏnjŏng), foreign trade (T'ongsang), military ordnance (Kunmul), machinery production (Kigye), shipbuilding (Sŏnham), coastal surveillance (Kiyŏn), personnel recruitment (Chŏnsŏn), special procurement (Iyong), and foreign-language schooling (Ŏhak). In May 1881, until their return home in September of that year, a technical mission was sent to Japan to survey its modernized facilities. They traveled all over Japan inspecting administrative, military, educational, and industrial facilities. In October, another small group went to Tianjin to study modern weapons manufacturing, and Chinese technicians were invited to manufacture weapons in Seoul. In July 1883, another fact-finding diplomatic mission toured the United States, meeting with American government leaders, including President Chester A. Arthur, and observing the urban and industrial development of the United States.
Japanese insecurities over Korea
During the 1880s, discussions about Japanese national security focused on the issue of Korean reform. The discourse over the two were interlinked, as the German military adviser Major Jacob Meckel stated, Korea was a "dagger pointed at the heart of Japan". What made Korea of strategic concern was not merely its proximity to Japan but its inability to defend itself against outsiders. If Korea were truly independent, it posed no strategic problem to Japan's national security but if the country remained backward and uncivilized it would remain weak and consequently would be inviting prey for foreign domination. The political consensus in Japan was that Korean independence lay, as it had been for Meiji Japan, through the importation of "civilization" from the West. Korea required a program of self-strengthening like the post-Restoration reforms enacted in Japan. The Japanese interest in the reform of Korea was not purely altruistic. Not only would these reforms enable Korea to resist foreign intrusion, which was in Japan's direct interest, but in being a conduit of change, they would also have opportunity to play a larger role on the peninsula. To Meiji leaders, the issue was not whether Korea should be reformed but how reform might be accomplished. There was a choice of adopting a passive role requiring the cultivation of reformist elements within Korea and rendering them assistance whenever possible, or adopting a more aggressive policy, actively interfering in Korean politics to assure that reform took place. Many advocates of reform in Japan, swung between these two positions.
Japan in the early 1880s was weak, as a result of internal peasant uprisings and samurai rebellions during the previous decade, the country was also struggling financially with inflation as a result of these internal factors. Subsequently, the Meiji government adopted a passive policy, encouraging the Korea court to follow the Japanese model but offering little concrete assistance except for the dispatch of the small military mission headed by Lieutenant Horimoto Reizo to train the Pyŏlgigun. What worried the Japanese was the activities of the Chinese, who appeared to be thwarting the fragile group of reformers in Korea. The Qing government had loosened its hold over Korea in 1876, when the Japanese succeeded in establishing a legal basis for Korean independence. However, Li Hongzhang and many other Chinese high officials were alarmed by the Japanese annexation of the Ryukyu kingdom, from their perspective what had happened to this former tributary state could happen to another as well.
Shufeldt treaty
After 1879, China's relations with Korea came under the authority of Li Hongzhang, who had emerged as one of the most influential figures in China after playing an important role during the Taiping Rebellion, and an advocate of the self-strengthening movement. In 1879, Li was appointed as governor-general of Zhili Province and the imperial commissioner for the northern ports. He was in charge of China's Korea policy and urged Korean officials to adopt China's own self-strengthening program to strengthen their country in response of foreign threats, to which King Gojong was receptive. The Chinese were wary of the Japanese intentions and sought to thwart Japanese influence on the peninsula after the conclusion of the Gangwha Treaty. The United States provided a possible solution: Li concluded that if he encouraged Korea to enter into treaty talks with the Americans, China could use the United States to offset Japan's growing influence. The Americans had shown an interest in entering into treaty negotiations with the Koreans and had dispatched Commodore Robert Shufeldt to East Asia waters. Shufeldt had first visited Japanese officials in 1880, to see if they would mediate between American officials and the Koreans, but the Japanese did not respond to his offer. In 1880, following Chinese advice, King Gojong decided to establish diplomatic ties with the United States, which was a break with tradition. Shufeldt then traveled to Tianjin, where he met with Li Hongzhang, who negotiated on behalf of the Koreans at the talks. After negotiations through Chinese mediation (1881–1882), the Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce, and Navigation was formally signed between the United States and Korea in Incheon on May 22, 1882.
The 14-article document provided for the protection of shipwrecked sailors, coal supplies for American vessels entering Korea, trading rights in selected Korean ports, the exchange of diplomatic representatives, granted the Americans extraterritoriality rights and most-favored-nation status in Korea. In return, the United States agreed not to import opium or arms into the country, Korean tariffs were kept high, extraterritoriality was made provisional upon the reform of Korean laws and judicial procedures to conform to America's, and there was no mention of permitting missionary activity. However, two significant issues were raised by the treaty, the first concerned Korea's status as an independent nation. During the talks with the Americans, Li Hongzhang insisted that the treaty contain an article declaring that Korea was a dependency of China and argued that the country had long been a tributary state of China. But Shufeldt firmly opposed such an article, arguing that an American treaty with Korea should be based on the Treaty of Ganghwa, which stipulated that Korea was an independent state. A compromise was finally reached, with Shufeldt and Li agreeing that the King of Korea would notify the U.S president in a letter that Korea had special status as a tributary state of China. The treaty between Korean government and the United States became the model for all treaties between it and other Western countries. Korea, later signed similar trade and commerce treaties with Great Britain and Germany in 1883, with Italy and Russia in 1884, and with France in 1886. Subsequently, commercial treaties were concluded with other European countries.
Establishment of the Pyŏlgigun
In 1881 as part of their plan to modernize Korea, King Gojong and his consort Queen Min had invited the Japanese military attaché Lieutenant Horimoto Reizō to serve as an adviser in creating a modern army. Eighty to one hundred young men of the aristocracy were to be given Japanese military training and a formation called the Pyŏlgigun (Special Skills Force) was established. In January 1882, the government also reorganized the existing five-army garrison structure into the Muwiyŏng (Palace Guards Garrison) and the Changŏyŏng (Capital Guards Garrison). However, there was resentment towards the Pyŏlgigun on the part of the soldiers of the regular army who were envious of the formation as it was much better equipped and treated than they were. Additionally, more than 1000 soldiers had been discharged in the process of overhauling the army, most of them were either old or disabled and the rest had not been given their pay in rice for thirteen months.
In June, King Gojong having been informed of the situation, ordered that a month's allowance of rice be given to the soldiers. He directed Min Gyeom-ho, the overseer of government finances and the Queen Min's nephew, to handle the matter. Min, in turn, handed the matter over to his steward who sold the good rice he had been given and used the money to buy millet that he mixed with sand and bran. As a result, the rice became so rotten and foul smelling as being inedible.
Events of the incident
Initial riot
The distribution of the alleged rice infuriated the soldiers. On July 23, 1882, the riot broke out in Uigeumbu. The enraged soldiers then headed for the residence of Min Gyeom-ho, whom they had suspected of having swindled them out of their rice. Min on hearing word of the revolt, ordered the police to arrest some of the ringleaders and announced that they would be executed the next morning. Min Gyeom-ho assumed that this would serve as a warning to the others. However, after learning what had transpired, the rioters broke into Min's house to take vengeance, as he was not at his residence the rioters vented their frustrations by destroying his furniture and other possessions.
The rioters then moved on to an armory from which they stole weapons and ammunition, they were now better armed than ever before in their careers as soldiers. The rioters then headed for the prison and after overpowering the guards, they released not only the men who had been arrested that day by Min Gyeom-ho but also but many political prisoners as well. Min, who was in the royal palace, now summoned the army to quell the rebellion but it had become too late to suppress the mutiny. The original body of rioters had been swelled by the poor of the city and other malcontents and as a result, the revolt had assumed major proportions.
Flight of the Japanese legation
The rioters now turned their attention to the Japanese. One group of rioters headed to Lieutenant Horimoto's quarters and took turns in stabbing the military instructor, administering many small wounds until they slowly killed him. Another group, some 3,000 strong, armed themselves with weapons taken from a looted depot and headed for the Japanese legation. Inside the legation was the minister to Korea, Hanabusa Yoshitada, seventeen members of his staff and ten legation police officers. The mob surrounded the legation shouting its intention of killing all the Japanese inside.
Hanabusa gave orders to burn the legation and important documents were set on fire. The flames quickly spread, and under cover of the flames and smoke, members of the legation escaped through a rear gate. The Japanese fled to the harbor where they boarded a boat which took them down the Han River to Incheon. At first they took refuge with the Incheon commandant but when word arrived of the events in Seoul, the attitude of their hosts changed and the Japanese realized they were no longer safe. They escaped to the harbor during rain and were pursued by Korean soldiers. Six Japanese were killed, while another five were seriously wounded. The survivors carrying the wounded, then boarded a small boat and headed for the open sea where three days later they were rescued by a British surveyor ship, .
Attack on the royal palace
The day after the attack on the Japanese legation, on July 24, the rioters forced their way into the royal palace where they found and killed Min Gyeom-ho, as well as a dozen other high-ranking officers including Heungin-gun Yi Choe-Heung, the older brother of the Daewongun, who was previously critical of Korea's isolation policy. They also searched for Queen Min intending to kill her because of her membership to the hated Min family, and as a result of the perceived the corruption in the government which was completely under her control. The queen narrowly escaped, however, dressed as an ordinary lady of the court and was carried on the back of a faithful guard who claimed she was his sister. She found refuge in the home of Min Eung-sik in Chungju, Chungcheong Province.
Aftermath
In the midst of the chaos, the regent father of the king, the Heungseon Daewongun, who had supported soldiers' complaints, took power and tried to re-establish order. The Japanese government sent Ambassador Hanabusa back to Seoul with four naval warships, three cargo ships and a battalion of armed soldiers.
Japanese response
There was significant indignation in Japan at the treatment of its nationals and the events were seen as an affront to the reputation of the Japanese nation. The foreign office under Inoue Kaoru commanded Hanabusa to return to Seoul and meet with senior Korean officials and to persuade them to set a date by which the rioters would be brought to justice in a manner which was satisfactory to the Japanese government. If the rioters were to make surprise attacks on the Japanese, they would then be compelled to use military force to against them, regardless of what measures the Korean government might have taken. Hanabusa was instructed that if the Koreans showed any signs of hiding the perpetrators and not punishing them or if they refused to take part in any discussions with the Japanese, this would constitute a clear breach of peace. In that case, a final letter would be sent to the Korean government by an envoy, indicting it for its crimes and then Japanese forces would occupy the port of Chempulpo and await further orders. Hanabusa was advised that if China or any other nation offered to mediate, it should be refused. The instructions, however, concluded on a conciliatory note, in that the Japanese government did not consider that the Korean government had intentionally harmed peaceful relations and there should a sincere attempt to restore the traditional good relations between the two countries. The incident could even provide a means of securing a lasting peace and in view of Korean national feelings, the Japanese had judged that it was premature to send a punitive expedition. The minister Hanabusa would only return to Seoul and be protected by army and navy troops, because of the concern that there was no predicting what further violence might be unleashed by the rioters.
Nevertheless, despite optimism of a peaceful resolution to the crisis, the Japanese government authorized the call-up of reserves in the beginning of August. Inoue Kaoru also notified western ministers in Tokyo of the government's decision to send troops and warships to Korea to protect Japanese citizens. He emphasized that the government's intentions were entirely peaceful, however, an offer by the American government to mediate was immediately declined. The emperor, worried about the situation in Korea, dispatched Chamberlain Yamaguchi Masasada to the country as a personal envoy. He remained there until the Treaty of Chemulpo was signed.
Chinese response
The Chinese received word about the rebellion through Li Shuchang, the Chinese minister in Tokyo in Japan. On August 1, as China did not have a legation in Korea at the time, Zhang Shuosheng dispatched ships of Beiyang Fleet under the command of Ding Ruchang to Korea with Ma Jianzhong on board to assess the status of the rebellion. About 4,500 troops, under General Wu Changqing arrived in Korea. The Chinese troops effectively regained control and quelled the rebellion and were then stationed at various points throughout Seoul. In the aftermath of rebellion, the Daewongun was accused of fomenting the rebellion and its violence, and was arrested by Chinese troops. On September 25, three high-ranking Chinese naval officers paid a courtesy call on the Daewongun and as they were leaving they asked him to attend an important meeting at their residence in the city. The Daewongun was obliged by rules of etiquette to return the call and went to the Chinese encampment the next day, as requested. Initially, there were the usual exchanges of politenesses between the two parties but at a signal, Chinese troops burst into the room seized the Daewongun and put him into a palanquin. He was carried off to the warship Weiyuan and while still inside the palanquin, was taken to China. He was not released from the palanquin until the Weiyuan reached Tianjin. In Tianjian, he was interrogated by Li Hung-chang, who unsuccessfully tried to make him admit responsibility for the events surrounding the uprising. Li ordered the Daewongun put back in his palanquin and he was carried off to a town about sixty miles southwest of Beijing, where for three years he was confined to one room and kept under strict surveillance.
Consequences
After the Imo Incident, early reform efforts in Korea suffered a major setback. The aftermath of the event also brought the Chinese into the country where they began to directly interfere in Korean internal affairs.
Reassertion of Chinese influence
After the incident, China reasserted its suzerainty over Korea and stationed troops in Seoul, commanded by Wu Changqing. The Chinese undertook several initiatives to gain significant influence over the Korean government. As well as stationing troops in Korea, two special advisers on foreign affairs representing Chinese interests were dispatched in Korea; the German Paul Georg von Möllendorff, who was a close confidant of Li Hongzhang, and the Chinese diplomat Ma Jianzhong. Wu Changqing, together with a staff of officers, took over the training of the Korean army and additionally provided the Koreans with 1,000 rifles, two cannons and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. Furthermore, the Ch'in'gunyŏng, (Capital Guards Command) was also created consisting of four barracks designated the right, left, front, and rear; this new Korean military formation was trained along Chinese lines by Yuan Shikai.
The Chinese further supervised the creation of a Korean Maritime Customs Service in 1883, with von Möellendorff as its head. Korea was again reduced to a tributary state of China with King Gojong unable to appoint diplomats without Chinese approval and troops stationed in Seoul in order to protect Chinese interests in the country. The Chinese government began to turn its former tributary state into a semi-colony and its policy toward Korea substantially changed to a new imperialistic one where the suzerain state demanded certain privileges in her vassal state.
In October 1882, the two countries signed a treaty stipulating that Korea was a dependency of China and granted Chinese merchants the right to conduct overland and maritime business freely within Korean borders. It also gave them substantial advantages over the Japanese and Westerners and also granted the Chinese unilateral extraterritoriality privileges in civil and criminal cases. Under the treaty the number of Chinese merchants and traders greatly increased, striking a severe blow to Korean merchants. Although it allowed Koreans reciprocally to trade in Beijing the agreement was not a treaty but was in effect issued as a regulation for a vassal, it also reasserted Korea's dependency on China.
Japanese military buildup
The crisis in Korea persuaded top civilian leaders in Japan that it was undesirable to postpone expenditure on a larger military. During the 1870s, the Japanese government was faced with internal peasant uprisings and samurai rebellions, which had led to rampant inflation and financial difficulties. Consequently, the government had decided in late 1880 to stabilize the currency by increased taxation and financial retrenchment. However, the Imo mutiny had underscored the urgency of military expansion, as Japan's limited military and naval power was made apparent. In contrast to the Chinese who had quickly dispatched an expeditionary force to Seoul, where they quickly established order and controlled the situation with their military superiority over the rioters, the Japanese had been forced to pursue a reactive or passive policy. To many in the country, including Yamagata Aritomo, the lesson was clear — that a conscript army of forty thousand men was no longer adequate to Japan's needs and neither was a navy lacking transport ships to dispatch troops abroad: were hostilities to break out with Korea or China, the country would be in a serious predicament. In September 1882, Iwakura Tomomi had also informed the Dajōkan that increased naval strength was essential for a maritime country like Japan. If Japan went to war, it would not have enough vessels to protect the home islands and if it used its fleet to protect the home islands it would not be able to mount an attack overseas. As the Chinese were building up their naval forces, and Japan would be unable to defend itself against China in a possible future conflict. Iwakura argued that it was of the utmost urgency to spend more on the navy even if this meant raising taxes.
Even Finance Minister Matsukata Masayoshi, who had implemented the fiscal retrenchment policy, agreed that financial resources had to be found for a military and naval buildup if the international situation required. Spurred on by anxieties over China, Japanese military expenditures grew steadily in the 1880s. In 1880 the share of military spending had amounted to 19 percent of total government expenditures, in 1886 it had risen to 25 percent and by 1890 it stood at 31 percent. In 1883, plans called for a substantial expansion of the Imperial Japanese Army with twenty-eight infantry regiments, including four imperial guard regiments; seven cavalry battalions; seven field artillery battalions, each consisting of two field-gun battalions and one mountain-gun battalion; seven engineer battalions; and seven transport battalions. The proposed composition of forces with increased cavalry, engineer and transport units was intended to reorganize the army as a force capable of fighting on the continent. The Imperial Japanese Navy also developed its own plans with the expansion of the fleet to forty-two vessels, thirty-two of which would have to be newly constructed. Within the next two years, twelve new vessels were purchased or put under construction.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Iwao, Seiichi. (2002). Dictionnaire historique du Japon (Vol. I), (Vol. II) (with Teizō Iyanaga, Susumu Ishii, Shōichirō Yoshida et al.). Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose. ; OCLC 51096469
Further reading
Ono, Giichi and Hyoye Ouchi. (1922). War and Armament Expenditures of Japan. New York: Oxford university Press. OCLC 1390434
External links
Japanese Cabinet Meeting document Oct 31, 1882
Japanese Cabinet Meeting document Nov 11, 1882
Conflicts in 1882
Military history of Korea
Military history of the Qing dynasty
19th-century military history of Japan
Japan–Korea relations
Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea
China–Japan relations
1882 in Korea
July 1882 events
1880s coups d'état and coup attempts
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Shanghai Nanyang Model High School (), often referred to simply as Nanmo (), is one of the oldest modern Chinese schools, founded in 1901 by Sheng Xuanhuai, Minister of Transportation of the Qing Dynasty.
As "the beginning of public elementary schools", the school started as the Affiliated Elementary School of Nanyang Public School (now Shanghai Jiaotong University). After over five decades of development and several name changes, in 1958, the name of the school was settled on Nanyang Model High School.
Two generations of national leaders Chairman Mao Zedong and General Secretary Jiang Zemin respectively entitled the Nanmo Student Poster "Qingfeng" ("Young Pioneer") for the Hundred Year Nanmo Message, and "Four Models" – the Model of Curiosity, the Model of Life, the Model of Patriotism, the Model of Aggressiveness. The school motto Diligence, Thrift, Devotion, Honesty, encourages students to form an ethos of solid academic, simple life, sound work, stout body. For a hundred years, the school has practised a teaching style of kindness, justice, strictness, and preciseness, and a study style of veracity, truth, refinement, and innovation with a commitment to foster the "Four Models" exemplary students.
Nanyang Model High School has been the member of Shanghai Experimental and Key Paradigm Schools since 2005. School features includes basketball, Student Art Troupe of Symphony Orchestra, Aesthetic Education, Environmental Protection Practice, National Defense Education, and community services. In January 2012, Nanyang Model High School became a member of World Leading Schools Association.
History
In 1896, Nanyang Public School () was founded by an imperial edict issued by Guangxu Emperor, under the Business and Telegraphs Office of the imperial government. Four schools were then established: the Normal School, the School of Foreign Studies, a middle school and a high school.
In 1901, Sheng Xuanhuai, the first president of the school, also the Minister of Transportation responsible for proposing the idea to Guangxu Emperor, then founded the predecessor of today's Shanghai Nanyang Model High School as an elementary school affiliated to the growing Nanyang Public School, which has now become Shanghai Jiao Tong University, a prestigious school renowned as one of the oldest and most selective universities in China.
The Elementary school affiliated to Nanyang Public School was one of the oldest new type schools in China found by Chinese. In 1927, the school was independent from the university and became private Nanyang Model Elementary/Middle School. Three years later, the senior department of the school was opened. In 1931, the school moved into Tianping campus. This campus is now the junior department of Nanyang Model High School which was separated from the school in 2000.
In April 1950, Chairman Mao Zedong inscribed “Qing Feng” (Young Pioneer) for the wall-newspaper of senior one students. In 1956, the school became public school again and was renamed as Shanghai No.71 High school.
In 1958, the name of the school was changed to Nanyang Model High School. In 1959, the school was appointed as one of the key schools in Shanghai.
In 2000, following the reform of the education system in Shanghai, the junior department of the school was closed and separated from the original campus and the school then became Shanghai Nanyang Model High School.
Names in history
Nanyang Model High School has the following different names in history:
Elementary school affiliated to Nanyang Public School (1901-1927)
Nanyang Model Elementary/Middle School (1927-1956) (Senior department of the school was opened in 1930.)
Shanghai No.71 High school (1956-1958)
Shanghai Nanyang Model High School (1958–present)
Campus
School facilities
With the development of more than one hundred years, the school now has two campuses named “Lingling”, which is the main campus for Domestic Division from senior one to senior two, and “Tianyao”, the southern campus only for senior three students. The total area of the school is about 64 mu, including 25,000m2 school buildings and facilities and 5,000m2 grassland for sports and student activities. The school has a 400m-track playground, nine outdoor basketball courts, one soccer field, one modern gymnasium with four indoor basketball courts and badminton courts, one multifunctional theater, one conservatory hall and one T-hall, either of which can seat over 500 people. In addition, the school has many multimedia and multifunctional classrooms, laboratories and teachers’ offices.
Main school buildings
The Red Building
In 1938, the school moved from its previous location into 200 Tianping Road when there was only on red-brick villa named Hong Lou () (the Red Building) on the campus for teaching. This new building is named after its prototype as a tribute to the school tradition.
Jing Xin Building
This building is named after the Chinese characters Jing and Xin () (Devotion and Honesty) from the school mottos.
In 1910, Mr. Tang Wenzhi, then principal of Nanyang Public School, designated “Qin, Jian, Jing, Xin” () (Diligence, Thrift, Devotion, and Honesty) as the four mottos of its elementary school, which also became the fundamental education philosophy of the school, as well as defined characteristics of every school student.
Shukui Building
This building is named in memory of Mr. Shen Qinghong, the school’s principal from 1911 to 1927, whose courtesy name was Shukui, and prename Xinggon.
As an educationist, Mr. Shen Shikui was appointed principal of the former elementary school affiliated to Nanyang Public School in 1911, and devoted a lot to the foundation and development of the later Nanyang Model High School from then on. Mr. Shen was the founder of the modern school music education in China, and one of the first music teachers of the Chinese modern education.
Tongyi Building
This building is named in memory of Mr. Shen Weizhen, the former principal from 1927 to 1966, whose courtesy name was Tongyi.
In 1927, the former elementary school affiliated to Nanyang Public School was restructured to a private elementary and middle school. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Mr. Shen remained principal till his retirement in 1966. Being the school principal for 39 years and having worked in the school for 55 years, Mr. Shen’s contribution was beyond unparalleled.
Academics
Featured school programs
The International Division of Nanyang Model High School was established in September 2008 for two programs: OC Program and British Columbia (Canada) Offshore School Program:
OC Program
The main recruitment of OC Program is for Grade 10 to Grade 12 students from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign countries. Under the instruction of the Department of Chinese Ministry of Education, OC Chinese courses are provided to teach standard Chinese high school study materials and Shanghai PEP combination courses. The courses are taught in classes of no more than 30 students by the teachers of Nanyang Model High School Domestic Division. The students attend the Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan joint examination and the entrance examination for foreign students held by Chinese universities.
British Columbia (BC) Offshore School Program
In the British Columbia (Canada) Offshore School Program, all students are registered with the BC Ministry of Education like Canadian students. The BC Ministry of Education has a strict control of the education quality and indicators in the system. Students in the BC program are required to have sufficient English language capabilities to either meet or exceed the curricular requirements when they enter the BC program. Students who do not meet the minimum English language requirements for entry into the BC program must not be admitted to the school.
All courses are selected by the BC Ministry of Education, taught by highly qualified foreign teachers who graduated from the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and other well-known schools in Canada. All students in this program use textbooks approved by the BC Ministry of Education's curriculum management. The British Columbia Certificate of Graduation or "Dogwood Diploma" is awarded upon successful completion of the provincial graduation requirements. Each year, student recruiters, representatives, and advisers, coming from schools all across the Canada visit Nanyang Model High school with detailed application and admission information for the students and faculty. All the students have equal chances to talk to the directors and admission coordinators from the University of Toronto, McGill University, the University of Waterloo, the University of British Columbia and other well-known schools face-to-face, getting a chance to raise questions. The graduate students from the BC Program with high school diploma and credits can apply for post-secondary institutions in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and English-speaking schools in other countries like Sweden and Switzerland.
In September 2016, Nanyang Model Private High School's BC Program was honoured to have the Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visit the school with Yao Ming to coach a friendly basketball game.
Skills Development Program
Skills Development Program in Nanmo is a new expending course for students’ critical thinking and study skills which is designed and validated by University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE). The aims are to help students develop their critical thinking, teamwork, and leadership abilities; enhance students’ communication skills; and encourage students to be independent reflective learners through various ways of research and inquiry.
Sports
Sport is a major feature of Nanyang Model High School. Basketball has become a traditional event in Nanyang Model High School.
Since the school renaissance in 1979, Nanyang Model High School has won Shanghai senior high school basketball championship more than 80 times. The major achievements include runner-up of Chinese High School League in 2004, champion in 2005 Reebok National High School basketball Invitational Championship, Champion of the Thirteenth Shanghai Sports Meet in 2006, and champion of Shanghai Student Sports Meet in 2008. to dates, Nanyang Model High School Basketball Team has won over 70 champions in Shanghai and five national basketball championships. The school has also fostered the former China men's national basketball team captain Zhang Dawei, former China women's national basketball captain Zhu Jinyun and many well-known athletes.
In October 2007, The Shanghai High School Sports Association Basketball Working Committee was established as the first sports organizations founded by Chinese Student Sports Federation in Nanyang Model High School by the school principal Gao Yi as the director. The commission's mandate is gradually assume the Shanghai high school students in training, competition, research work. Since its inception, it has hosted the high school league in 2007, Li Ning Junior Basketball League, and the basketball training observe lessons held in Baoshan Shanghai traditional basketball school.
Nanmo Cup
Students in Nanyang Model High School hosted their own basketball tournament since 1982. The "Nanmo Cup" has been held every year since then and have 52 matches each season.
Music and arts
Student Art Troupe of Symphony Orchestra
The Student Art Troupe of Symphony Orchestra of Nanyang Model High School was founded in August 1992 by Mr. Cao Peng who is also the artistic director and Principal Conductor. The orchestra staff comprises professors from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and senior performers of professional orchestra for each part.
Nanyang Model High School Student Symphony Orchestra regularly participates in the performance of the Shanghai Arts Festival, major social celebration, multiple performance and the exchange of secondary school students of the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, Taiwan and other arts organizations.
The Symphony Orchestra also participates in the exhibitions and activities of the Shanghai World Expo, Taipei International Flora Exposition, and the 65th session of the Chicago World Music Festival exchange of performances. It has won the first, second, and third national primary and secondary school art festival first prize; the 15th Australian International Music Festival Gold Award; and the gold medal first place of the 35th International Youth and Music Festival, Vienna, Austria.
Aesthetic education
School aesthetic course experiment has been emphasized for 19 years. One of the important content in aesthetic lesson is the appreciation of the ten styles of arts, which has been the solid artistic constitution in Nanyang Model High School, as a support feature of the students’ personality of quality education.
The school has been organizing art appreciation courses and activities for a long time. There is a variety of enriched content in this aesthetic course which stress both Chinese traditional culture and the mainstream western cultures. The student experiences range from the drama Shang Yang, En attendant Godot, the opera Eugene Onegin, the Kunqu, to ancient Egypt exhibition, Joan Miró’s Paintings, Auguste Rodin’s sculpture Exhibition, international photography exhibition, and Henry Moore’s sculpture exhibition. In this featured program at Nanmo, students have gained a broad aesthetic education that is rarely comparable in Shanghai's Experimental and Key Paradigm Schools.
School magazines
Nanyang Model News () is the school's official published news with a regular monthly release. Nanyang Model High school also has other school publications such as The Alumni Newsletter (), Teaching and Research (), National Defense () etc.
Principals in history
There have been 11 principals in the school's history:
Woo Tsin-hang (Wu Zhihui) (1901) ()
Chen Maozhi (1901-1904) ()
Lin Kanghou (1904-1911) ()
Shen Shukui (1911-1927) ()
Shen Tongyi (1927-1966) ()
Zhu Jiaze (1978-1979) ()
Zhao Xianchu (1979-1984) ()
Yuan Yipei (1989-1990) ()
Zhang Maochang (1990-2000) ()
Qian Yaobang (2001-2005) ()
Gao Yi (2005–present day) ()
Notable alumni
For over a hundred years, nearly 40,000 students graduated from the school, including 5 selected to U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and 46 to Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering. They end up being university presidents, world champions, ambassadors, army generals, and martyrs (Chen Yuqin, Fang Nengji, Zhao Youguo) for the protection of a people.
Zou Taofen (邹韬奋) reporter, publisher
Zhang Guangdou (张光斗) specialist in hydraulic engineering
Wang Xuan (王选) innovator of the Chinese printing industry
Tang Xiaowei (唐孝威) physicist
Chen Junliang (陈俊亮) specialist in communication network
He Zuoxiu (何祚庥) physicist
Nina Wang (龔如心)
Larry Yung (荣智健) former chairman of CITIC Pacific
Li Daoyu (李道豫) former Chinese ambassador to the U.S.
Fu Lei (傅雷) translator
Pai Hsien-yung (白先勇) writer
Business
Sheng Yudu (enrolled in 1924): in Japan, overseas Chinese entrepreneur, Tokyo Lingering Garden Co., Ltd. President, grandson of Sheng Xuanhuai
Yin Zhihao, ‘29: Taiwanese entrepreneur, Continental Engineering Corporation chairman, honorary chairman of Acer
Dan Sheng, ‘47: Europe trip prominent businessman, community leaders, all the British Overseas Chinese Association, president of China's reunification
Zhang Zhongmo, ‘48: Taiwanese entrepreneur, TSMC chairman, known as "godfather of Taiwan Semiconductor"
Gong Ruxin, ‘54: Hong Kong entrepreneur, Nanyang Model High School Alumni Association during his lifetime was the honorary president of the Hong Kong Branch
Cao Qiyong, ‘56: Hong Kong entrepreneur, Vice Chairman of Hong Kong Novel Enterprises Ltd., Guangbiao Cao's son
Rong Zhijian, ‘59: Hong Kong entrepreneur, former chairman of CITIC Pacific, the son of former Vice President Rong
Chen XiaoJin, ‘63: China Shipbuilding Group Corporation, the son of Chen Pixian
Chen Feilong : Taiwanese entrepreneur, Nan Chiau Group Chairman, former ROC legislator
Jiang Zhicheng (2004: Bo Yu Investment Consultants Limited, Jiang Sun
Military and politics
Xu Mo, 1908: political scientist, jurist, former International Court of Justice, Republic of China ambassadors
Ye Gongchao (enrolled in 1911): the former ROC Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China Ambassador, presidential advisor
Fei Hua, 1927: former Minister of Finance, Republic of China
Gu Dehuan, 1927: former vice governor of Zhejiang Province, Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Electronics, the first director
Zhou Jiannan, ‘34: former Minister of Machinery Industry, Republic of China
Zhang Liangqi, ‘41: former president of the National Defense University, with rank of Major General
He Kang, ‘42: former Minister of Agriculture, Republic of China
Cecilia Yen Koo, ‘44: the Republic of China presidential advisor, Women's Federation, chairman of the Council, the wife of former SEF chairman Gu Chenfu
Xu Weicheng, ‘47: the former Deputy Minister of Propaganda, chief editor of Encyclopedia of China Publishing House
Li Ruiqian, ‘47 term: the former Dean of Engineering, the PLA Air Force, Air Force major general
Li Daoyu, ‘49: the former Chinese Ambassador to the U.S., China's Permanent Representative to the UN
Ma Qingxiong, ‘50: the former State Vice Minister of Radio, Film and Television
Xu Jingxian, ‘51: the former Shanghai Revolutionary Committee, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Party Committee Secretary
Li Longcheng, ‘56: the former Vice Chairman of Shanxi Province
Chen Haosu, ‘59: The Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the son of Marshal Chenyi
Gong Xinhan, ‘59: the former Deputy Minister of Propaganda
Wang Guangtao, ‘60: the former Minister of Construction
Gan Yisheng, ‘64: deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection
Li Yuanchao, ‘66: Vice President of the People's Republic of China
Technology
Hu Mingfu, 1903: China's first mathematics Ph.D., founder of the Science Society of China
Hu Gangfu, 1903: China one of the founders of modern physics
Hou Kun, ‘03: the father of Chinese typewriter, America's first master's degree graduates in aeronautical engineering
Fu Huanguang, ‘09: forest scientist, a founder of the Chinese cause soil and water conservation
Li Ximou, ‘10: motors experts, former Taiwan Provincial Museum, National Chiao Tung University
Zhu Linwu, ‘18: Thermal engineering expert, former director of Jiao Tong University, Department of Engineering Physics, Head of Ship Power
Gu Yuquan, ‘19: textile machinery manufacturing expert, former national director of the Central Industrial test, KMT Central Committee Commission Vice Chairman, CPPCC National Committee
Tong Daxun, ‘23: Railway engineering experts, China's "Railway Engineering" discipline one of the pioneers
Zhang Guangdou, ‘27: Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering experts, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering, Nanyang Model High School Alumni Association is currently Honorary President
Hu Shihua, ‘27: mathematical logician, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Huang Xichun, ‘33: electromagnetic theory and technical expert, China transient electromagnetic fields and electromagnetic waves of the troposphere pioneer
Feng Xianpei, ‘34: Railway public works expert, the Chinese railway pioneers of heavy rail
Feng Jizhong, ‘35: architect, the founder of Chinese urban planning
Guo Dunren, ‘35: physicist, professor at Peking University, bridge "generous slice bid law," the inventor
Hu Hanquan, ‘36: vacuum electronics experts, China's main microwave vacuum electronic devices one of the pioneers
Li Zhifang, ‘36: chemical fiber expert, China One of the founders of chemical engineering
Li Tianhe, ‘39: Chinese electrical scientist, MIT professor, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, foreign academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering
Hu Xuchu, ‘40: physiologist, former deputy director of Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences
Zhuang Fenggan, ‘42: aerodynamicists, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fellow of International Academy of Astronautics
Tang Nianci, ‘42: geotechnical engineering experts, the Chinese founder of the pile dynamics
Jiang Shifei, ‘42: a computer expert, former Chinese Academy of Sciences Shenyang Institute of Computing Technology
Dou Zulie, ‘43: a computer expert, Academia Sinica
Xu Xiaobai, ‘44: chemist, Chinese Academy of Sciences
He Zuoxiu, ‘45: physicist, philosopher, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ge Shouren, ‘45: the former Dean of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Academia Sinica, foreign academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Li Gao, ‘45: the former president of Shanghai University of Engineering Sciences, the first dean of China Europe International Business School
Tian Changzhuo, ‘45: aviation expert, former chief architect of the Boeing Company
Yang Fuyu, ‘46: biochemist, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xu Daxiong, ‘46: physicist, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, honorary president of Century College, the Kyrgyz foreign academician of National Academy of Sciences
Chen Huaijin, ‘46: rocket expert, former Chief Engineer of the Chinese Ministry of Space Industry, the IAF Vice President, International Astronautical Academy of Sciences
Zhu Yongxun, ‘47: nuclear, chemical experts, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Gu Songfen, ‘47: Aircraft designer, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering, "the father of J-8"
Wu Chengkang, ‘47: high-temperature gas mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Hua Tongwen, ‘47: chemical educator, professor at Peking University
Xu Qingrui, ‘47: management scientist, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Qiu Dahong, ‘47: coastal and offshore engineer, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zheng Xuyun, ‘47: Chinese experts in tribology, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering
Gu Weilian, ‘48: agronomist, former president of Shenyang Agricultural University, Gu Yuxiu son
Tang Xiaowei, ‘49: physicist, hydrogen bomb, atomic bomb hero, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Pan Junhua, ‘49: Astronomical optics expert, Chinese Academy of Engineering
He Yuqi, ‘50: Chinese experts in control theory, Harvard University, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering Foreign Member
Ni Weidou, ‘50: Mechanical engineering experts, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ruan Xueyu, ‘50: pressure processing experts, the Chinese Academy of Engineering
Xu Zhongyu, ‘50: materials scientist, former Vice President of Hunan University, Changsha University chancellor
Chen Junliang, ‘51: Communications and electronics expert, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Shen Zuyan, ‘51: steel expert, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Xie Youbai, ‘51: engineer, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Zhang Jigao, ‘51: electrical contact expert, the Chinese electrical contact one of the pioneers of disciplines
Dai Kerong, ‘52: biomechanics experts, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Wang Xun, ‘52: physicist, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Cao Chunxiao, ‘52: Material scientists, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China research co-founder of the titanium
Chen Junshi, ‘52: Nutrition and food safety experts, the Chinese Academy of Engineering
Zhong Wanxie, ‘52: the calculation mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Ge Xiurun, ‘52: Rock mechanics experts, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Yuan Quan, ‘52: chemical engineering scientists, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shen Yuanrang, ‘52: Chinese physicist, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Academia Sinica, foreign academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Fei Lin, ‘53: Architect, Zhongyuan International Engineering Design & Research Institute chief architect, professor at Tsinghua University
Xiang Kunsan, ‘53: physician, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Le Weisong, ‘53: The original Shanghai Aviation Industrial School
Wang Xuan, ‘54: a computer expert, founder of Chinese laser typesetting system, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering, former Vice Chairman of CPPCC
Zhang Gongqing, ‘54: mathematician, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Third World Academy of Sciences
Ding Shizhao, ‘55: Project Management Specialist, Project Management Institute of Peking University and honorary director of the British Royal Institution of Chartered senior construction engineer
Yang Shiqin, ‘56: the former president of Harbin Institute of Technology
Wang Yifei, ‘57: Embryologist, former president of Shanghai Second Medical University
Song Baoyun, ‘57: the former vice president of Dalian Railway, China's continuous extrusion technology, one of the founders
Xing Tonghe, ‘57: Architect, Shanghai Modern Architectural Design Group chief architect, architectural design of the Shanghai World Expo Center
Wang Shenghong, ‘59: the former president of Peking University
Weng Zuze, ‘59: the former Hunan University
Wang Zhenxi, ‘59: expert of magnetic and amorphous materials, Chinese Academy of Engineering
Yuan Jie, ‘82: space science expert, deputy general manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the IAF Vice President
Literature, history and economics
Chen Yuan, ‘10: writer, former Dean of Wuhan University, first representative in UNESCO on behalf of the Republic of China
Zhu Dongrun, ‘10: biography writer, literary historian, a pioneer of modern Chinese literature, biographies, original Chinese Department of Peking University
Zou Taofen, ‘13: well-known correspondent, publisher
Du Dingyou, ‘14: library scientists, China one of the pioneers of modern librarianship
Tang Qingzeng, ‘17: historians of economic thought, Jiaotong University, son of Tang Wenzhi
Fei Gong, ‘18: professor of Zhejiang University
Fu Lei (enrolled in 1920): well-known literary translator
Zhou Lianhua (enrolled in 1932): Taiwan's well-known theologian
Hua Yan, ‘44: Taiwan's well-known writer, Yan Fu's granddaughter, sister of Yen Cho-yun
Bai Xianyong (enrolled in 1947): Taiwanese writer, son of Bai Chongxi, general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China
Xia Yulong, ‘46: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
Li Yining, ‘47: economist, Dean of Peking University Guanghua School of Management
Zhou Erliu, ‘48: Professor of Sociology, former vice president of Peking University, nephew of Zhou Enlai
Chen Qineng, ‘52: historian, honorary academician Academy of Social Sciences
Zhao Xiaqiu, ‘53: writer, professor of Renmin University of China, mother of Phoenix Television host Zeng Zimo
Zhou Huijun, ‘58: calligrapher, President of Shanghai Calligraphers Association, Vice President of Chinese Calligraphers Association
Art and sports
Wan Jin, ‘37: Chinese photographer, former president of the Canada-China Friendship Association
Zhang Banglun, ‘38: China footballer
Fei Mingyi, ‘48: well-known Hong Kong singer
Zhou Liangliang, ‘50: performing artists, actors at the national level
Sun Yue, ‘52: Peking Opera stars, older students work
Wei Jizhong, ‘54: The former Secretary-General of the Chinese Olympic Committee, former Chinese Olympic Committee Vice President, 2000 Olympic Committee Secretary General
Wei Zongwan, ‘55: National Class One Performer
Hu Zhifeng, ‘56: Peking Opera, Chinese Opera Society performance
Pan Yifei, ‘57: the former vice president of Central Conservatory of Music
Hu Zurong, ‘60: pole vaulter, had five break the national record, the Chinese Paralympic Sports Association Vice President
Zuo Zhenguan, ‘63: Russian-Chinese composer, Russian Philharmonic Orchestra
Zhang Dawei, ‘66: The original Chinese team captain, head coach of China women's basketball
Yan Xiaopin, ‘82: Film actor
Gu Wei, ‘88: Swedish-Chinese dancers, MD
Yan Hua, ‘97: Shanghai Oriental TV host
References
External links
Nanyang Model High School Official Website
Official Website of Nanyang Model Private High School's BC Program
Schools in Shanghai
High schools in Shanghai
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I Am a Singer (season 4), is the fourth season of the Chinese version of the South Korean reality show I Am a Singer. The show was broadcast on Hunan Television in 2016. Due to the sudden banning of Korean entertainment in China in November 2016, this was currently the last season to feature Korean singers in the competition. It was also the last season to use the I Am a Singer title, before renaming to Singer with effect from the next season.
The season premiered on January 15, 2016, and concluded on April 15, 2016. On the finals aired April 8, 2016, Hong Kong-American singer Coco Lee was the winner of the season, becoming the first non-mainland Chinese national to win the show. Jeff Chang came in second, and Korean singer Hwang Chi-yeul finished third place.
Competition format
Most of the competition followed the same format as the previous series, including the Challenge rounds debuted in the last season. Like the previous seasons, the votes counted from both the Qualifier and Knockout rounds determined which singer was eliminated for the night. The Challenge round which introduced in the previous season also return, with an added rule where singers had to rank in the top four (4th place or better) to remain in the competition.
I Am a Singer- Who Will Challenge
An online Spin-off of the show, I Am a Singer- Who Will Challenge (我是歌手—誰來踢館) was aired daily from December 5, 2015, until the finale on January 23, 2016, on the online site of Mango TV, for a total of 50 days.
The site featured each contestant having their own Challenge page, where online viewers were able recommend the singers in participating the competition. When a singer's recommendation hit at least 18,000 views, they were eligible to participate in a daily live show aired between December 5, 2015, until January 7, 2016. During each episode's broadcast, viewers could distribute their 100 "Decibel points" to the singers they liked the most on each show.
The top eight singers accumulating the most 'Decibel points' after January 7 moved on to the Sing-off. During each night's broadcast until January 15, two random singers had to sing one song each, with a total of three songs throughout the eight shows. 10,000 viewers were be chosen at random. These viewers distributed their 100 "Decibel points" to determine the contestants placement in the sing-off as well as in the finale. The second week's shows that aired from January 16 until January 22 featured the singer's daily lives and their preparations up to the finale.
The finale aired January 23 and showcased the eight singers for the last time, each singing two songs (one chosen song and one hit song from previous seasons). In each round, 10,000 "Decibel points were distributed to random viewers eligible to cast their votes for the winner (viewers had to vote for three singers to be counted as a valid vote). The singer accumulating the most votes after two songs would win the right to take part in the competition as a Challenger on the third Challenge round.
Korean singer Kim Ji-Mun was named as the winner of I Am a Singer- Who Will Challenge.
Tiebreaker
A tiebreaker can occur when multiple singers were tied with the lowest votes cast during an elimination round. The tie is resolved based on the placements in the next round, and the singer receiving a lower placement (regardless of the placements from other singers) was eliminated. Any eliminations (if applicable) in the following round would conduct as normal.
Contestants
The following singers participated in the fourth season are listed in alphabetical order (singers without a placement for the final is listed as finalist and singers withdrew were listed as withdrawn):
Key:
– Winner
– Runner-up
– Third place
– Other finalist
Future appearances
Coco Lee later returned as a guest performer on the fifth and sixth seasons. Kim Ji Mun later appeared on the seventh season as a guest performer for Yang Kun. Lala Hsu returned to compete for a second time on the eighth season.
Results
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; font-size:85%"
|+
|-
! rowspan="4" width="30" | !! rowspan="4" width="250" class="unsortable" |Singer !! colspan="14" | Broadcast date (2016)
|-
! width="30"|Jan 15 !! width="30" |Jan 22
!! width="30" |Jan 29!! width="30"|Feb 5 !! width="30" |Feb 12
!! width="30"|Feb 19 !! width="30" |Feb 26 !! width="30" |Mar 4
!! width="30" |Mar 11 !! width="30"|Mar 18 !! width="30" |Mar 25
!! width="30"|Apr 1 !! colspan="2" width="30"|Apr 8
|-
! colspan="3" |1st round
! colspan="3" |2nd round
! colspan="3" |3rd round
! colspan="2" |4th round
! rowspan="2" |Breakout
! colspan="2" |Final Round
|-
! width="70" data-sort-type="text" |Qualifying !! width="70" data-sort-type="text" |Knockout !! width="70" data-sort-type="text|Challenge !! width="70" data-sort-type="text"|Qualifying !! width="70" data-sort-type="text" |Knockout !! width="70" data-sort-type="text|Challenge !! width="70" data-sort-type="text"|Qualifying !! width="70" data-sort-type="text" |Knockout !! width="70" data-sort-type="text|Challenge !! width="70" data-sort-type="text"|Qualifying !! width="70" data-sort-type="text" |Knockout !! width="70" data-sort-type="text|1st round !! width="70" |2nd round
|-
| 1
| Coco Lee
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: red; color: white"| 7
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: pink;"| —
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: lime;"| 1
|-
| 2
| Jeff Chang
| —
| —
| —
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background:#C697F3;"| 1
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background: yellow;"| 2
|-
| 3
| Hwang Chi Yeul
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: pink;"| —
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: yellow;"| 3
|-
| =4
| Hacken Lee
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: pink;"| —
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: yellow;"| —
|-
| =4
| LaLa Hsu
| style="background: blue; color: white"| 1
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background: pink;"| 2
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: red; color: white"| 7
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: pink;"| —
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background: yellow;"| —
|-
| =4
| Lao Lang
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background: grey; color: white"| 7
| style="background:#C697F3;"| 3
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: yellow;"| —
|-
| 7
| Joey Yung
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background: red; color: white"| 7
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background:#C697F3;"| 2
| style="background: grey; color: white"| 7
| style="background:#F89B40;"| —
|-
| =8
| style="background:#92D3DA;color: black"| Elvis Wang
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| style="background:#994299; color: white"| 1
| style="background: red; color: white"| 7
| style="background: grey; color: white"| 3
| style="background:#F89B40;" | —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background:#7FFFD4;"|4
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
|-
| =8
| Chao Chuan
| style="background: pink;"| 5
| style="background: pink;"| 3
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background: red;color: white"| 7
| style="background: grey; color: white"| 7
| style="background:#F89B40;" | —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background:#7FFFD4;"| 5
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
|-
| =8
| Shin
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: pink;"| 7
| style="background: red; color: white"| 7
| style="background: pink;"| 6
| style="background: pink;"| 4
| style="background: grey; color: white"| 7
| style="background:#F89B40;" | —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background:#7FFFD4;"| 6
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
|-
| =8
| style="background:#AFDFE4;color: black"| Kim Ji Mun
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
| style="background: tan;"| 6
| style="background:#F89B40;"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background:#7FFFD4;"| 7
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
|-
| =8
| style="background:#AFDFE4;color: black"| Su Yunying
| —
| —
| style="background: tan;"| 5
| style="background:#F89B40;"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background:#7FFFD4;"|8
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
|-
| =8
| HAYA Band
| style="background: red; color: white"| 7
| style="background: grey; color: white"| 4
| style="background:#F89B40; color: black"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background:#7FFFD4;"| 9
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
|-
| =8
| Guan Zhe
| style="background: red; color: white"| 7
| style="background: grey; color: white"| 8
| style="background:#F89B40;" | —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background:#7FFFD4;"| 10
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
| style="background: grey; color: white"| —
|-
|}
Competition Details
1st round
Qualifying (Scramble Tournament)
Taping Date: January 7, 2016
Airdate: January 15, 2016
For the first time in the show's history, as there were eight first round singers instead of seven, this round featured elimination. The singer receiving the lowest number of votes would be immediately eliminated; however, no one was eliminated as the bottom two singers were tied for 7th.
Knockout
Taping Date: January 14, 2016
Airdate: January 21, 2016
The round features its first-ever (and the series' only) tiebreaker of the series; between the two singers (HAYA band and Zhe) who tied for 7th on the last round, the one with the lower vote would be eliminated regardless of the overall placement. Eliminations for the round went ahead as normal; of the remaining seven singers, the singer with the lowest combined votes will also be eliminated.
Overall ranking
Guan Zhe was eliminated for losing the tie-breaker while HAYA Band was eliminated for receiving a lower count of overall votes; ironically, the two eliminated singers coincidentally received the bottom two count of overall votes.
A. Coco Lee received 389 votes this round.
B. Four votes less than 4th.
C. Six votes less than 4th.
Challenge
Taping Date: January 21, 2016
Airdate: January 29, 2016
Su Yunying was the first challenger of the season; Shin would have been eliminated for finishing last, however, Su was unsuccessful in her challenge (placed 5th) and she was eliminated instead. Chuan was originally going to perform "白天不懂夜的黑" this week, but later changed to "Hotel California" as Chuan decided to pay tribute to the late-Eagles founder and lead singer Glenn Frey, who died the day before taping.
A. Hacken Lee received 354 votes this round (25.50%).
2nd round
Qualifying
Taping Date: January 27, 2016
Airdate: February 5, 2016
Jeff Chang was the first substitute singer of the season.
Knockout
Taping Date: February 3, 2016
Airdate: February 12, 2016
Overall ranking
A. Coco Lee received 348 votes this round.
Challenge
Taping Date: February 10, 2016
Airdate: February 19, 2016
Elvis Wang was the second challenger of the season.
3rd round
Qualifying
Taping Date: February 17, 2016
Airdate: February 26, 2016
Joey Yung was the second substitute singer of the season. During the episode, Yung was prompted to redo her recording twice after her radio equipment malfunctioned.
Knockout
Taping Date: February 25, 2016
Airdate: March 4, 2016
Chang and Coco were originally going to perform 2nd and 6th, respectively, but swapped by mutual agreement as Coco caught a bad cold.
Overall ranking
A. One vote less than 3rd.
Challenge (Ultimate Challenge Round)
Taping Date: March 3, 2016
Airdate: March 11, 2016
Kim Ji-Mun won the I Am a Singer- Who Will Challenge online spin-off competition and became the third and final challenger of the season; LaLa Hsu was initially eliminated for finishing last, however, Kim was unsuccessful in his challenge (placed 6th) and was eliminated instead.
4th round
Qualifying (Ultimate Qualifying Round)
Taping Date: March 10, 2016
Airdate: March 18, 2016
Lao Lang was the third and final substitute singer of the season. The order of performance for this episode was determined through swiping their smartphones, with the singer picking the first smartphone getting to perform first. After the performance, the backup singer would randomly pick one singer to perform next and vice versa.
Knockout (Ultimate Knockout Round)
Taping Date: March 17, 2016
Airdate: March 25, 2016
Yung and Lao were originally going to perform 4th and 6th, respectively, but swapped by mutual agreement due to Yung's leg injury. Portions of Leslie Cheung's lyrics during Chang's performance were unaired due to Cheung's death anniversary on April 1.
Overall ranking
A. Three votes less than 3rd.
B. Six votes less than 4th.
Breakout
Taping Date: March 24, 2016
Airdate: April 1, 2016
Four of the six singers who were initial singers (Hsu, Hwang, Coco and Hacken) were exempt from this round, while the other two singers participated along with previously eliminated singers for a chance to enter the finals. The performance order was determined based on the contestant's status quo and their duration on the stage. All but four singers went through ballot to decide the order, while Chang and Yung selected their performance freely, while unsuccessful challengers (Su and Kim) were defaulted to the first two performances.
The singers sang one song, and the three singers with the most votes qualified for the finals. Chang, Yung and Lao were the top three singers who received the highest number of votes and advanced to the finals. In a final tally, Lao, Wang, Shin, Kim and Su were revealed to have garnered 142, 134, 100, 99 and 98 votes, respectively.
"我的天空", during Chang's performance as part of his medley, was edited out due to time constraints. This is currently the only episode to date in I Am a Singer where all participating contestants in the Breakout round doubled their roles as the hosts.
Final Round
Airdate: April 8, 2016
The finals were divided into two rounds, with the first song being a duet with a guest singer, and the second song being a solo encore performance. Similar to the previous season, only combined votes determined the season's winner.
First round
The first round of the finals was a guest singer's duet. The order was determined through balloting. The singer who received the lowest number of votes after the first round was eliminated from the competition.
Second round
The order of performance of this round was determined by the "First and Last" duel sequence based on the results of the first round, with the order being: 3rd, 4th, 2nd, 5th, 1st and 6th.
Overall results (Winner of Battle)
Before the final results were announced, the host named Chang, Hwang and Coco as the "Ultimate Winner Candidates". Coco was declared the winner with 53.29% of the votes, beating Chang's 25.75% and Hwang's 20.96% of the votes cast. The percentages reflected in the table counted only the votes of the three aforementioned singers.
Biennial Concert
Airdate: April 15, 2016
The concert featured singers from the third and fourth series, which include Han Hong, Li Jian, The One, Sitar Tan, Tiger Hu and A-Lin from Season 3, as well as Season 4 finalists Coco Lee, Jeff Chang, Hwang Chi Yeul, Hacken Lee, Joey Yung, LaLa Hsu and Lao Lang.
Ratings
|-
|1
|
|1.620
|7.41
|3
|1.00
|6.26
|2
|
|-
|2
|
|1.995
|
|2
|1.45
|
|1
|
|-
|3
|
|1.884
|9.06
|4
|1.13
|
|1
|
|-
|4
|
|2.271
|9.21
|1
|1.45
|7.23
|1
|
|-
|5
|
|1.891
|9.05
|3
|1.39
|7.30
|1
|CSM52 data do not have Lhasa data, then it is CSM51.
|-
|6
|
|2.003
|8.18
|4
|1.00
|5.95
|1
|
|-
|7
|
|1.863
|7.92
|4
|1.08
|6.24
|1
|
|-
|8
|
|2.015
|8.16
|3
|
|5.43
|1
|
|-
|9
|
|1.948
|8.43
|3
|1.00
|6.00
|1
|
|-
|10
|
|1.777
|7.19
|4
|
|5.34
|3
|
|-
|11
|
|1.935
|8.19
|4
|1.00
|5.94
|3
|
|-
|12
|
|1.690
|7.73
|4
|1.01
|6.20
|1
|
|-
|13
|
|
|7.89
|1
|
|5.86
|1
|This episode was in live-broadcast episode and began to 20:10 p.m. broadcast.
|-
|SP1
|
|
|
|3
|
|
|
|This episode was broadcast live.
External links
1. The entire series on YouTube
References
2016 Chinese television seasons
2016 in Chinese music
Singer (TV series)
| 5,676 |
doc-en-10978_0
|
Talbot Baines Reed (3 April 1852 – 28 November 1893) was an English writer of boys' fiction who established a genre of school stories that endured into the mid-20th century. Among his best-known work is The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's. He was a regular and prolific contributor to The Boy's Own Paper (B.O.P.), in which most of his fiction first appeared. Through his family's business, Reed became a prominent typefounder, and wrote a standard work on the subject: History of the Old English Letter Foundries.
Reed's father, Charles Reed, was a successful London printer who later became a Member of Parliament (MP). Talbot attended the City of London School before leaving at 17 to join the family business in Fann Street. His literary career began in 1879, when the B.O.P. was launched. The family were staunchly Christian, pillars of the Congregational Church, and were heavily involved in charitable works. However, Reed did not use his writing as a vehicle for moralising, and was dismissive of those early school story writers who did, such as Dean Farrar. Reed's affinity with boys, his instinctive understanding of their standpoint in life and his gift for creating believable characters, ensured that his popularity survived through several generations. He was widely imitated by other writers in the school story genre.
In 1881, following the death of his father, Reed became head of the company. By then he had begun his monumental history which was published in 1887. Along with his B.O.P. contributions Reed wrote regular articles and book reviews for his cousin Edward Baines's newspaper, the Leeds Mercury. He was a co-founder and first honorary secretary of the Bibliographical Society, and a trustee for his family's charities. All this activity may have undermined his health; after struggling with illness for most of 1893, Reed died in November that year, at the age of 41. Tributes honoured him both for his contribution to children's fiction and for his work as the definitive historian of English typefounding.
Family background
The Reeds were descended from John Reed, a colonel in Oliver Cromwell's army during the English Civil War. The family was based in Maiden Newton in the county of Dorset before moving to London at the end of the 18th century. Talbot Reed's grandfather, Andrew Reed (1787–1862), was a minister of the Congregational Church and the founder of several charitable institutions, including the London Orphan Asylum and a hospital for the incurably sick. He was also a hymn-writer of repute; his "Spirit Divine, attend our prayers" is still found in several 20th and 21st century hymnals.
Andrew Reed had five sons, the third of whom, Charles Reed (1819–81), was apprenticed in 1836 to a wool manufacturer in Leeds, Yorkshire, where he also became secretary of the local Sunday School union. Through this work he met Edward Baines, proprietor of the Leeds Mercury one of the town's two MPs. The Baines family had a strong tradition of public and political service; both of Edward Baines's sons followed him into Parliament, the elder, Matthew Talbot Baines, eventually reaching Cabinet rank. Charles Reed was attracted to the youngest Baines offspring, a daughter, Margaret, whom he married in 1844. By this time Charles had left the wool industry and returned to London, where he founded his first business, a printing firm.
The family settled in the London district of Hackney where Charles was active in public and religious affairs, with a particular interest in education. He became a member, and later chairman, of the London School Board, and helped to establish the Congregational Church Board of Education. From 1868 to 1881 he was one of Hackney's MPs. He also raised a family of five sons, the third of whom, named Talbot Baines after his distinguished uncle, was born at the family home, "Earlsmead", on 3 April 1852. Over the years, Charles expanded his business interests, and by 1861 had prospered sufficiently to acquire the Thorowgood type foundry in Fann Street, City of London.
Early life
Talbot Baines Reed grew up in a happy household, dominated by Charles Reed's religious zeal and his belief that hardy outdoor sports were the best means for bringing up boys. This atmosphere of "simple, cheerful Puritanism" was, according to a friend, "eminently suited to [Talbot's] character and disposition". Talbot began his education at Priory House School, Clapton, and in 1864 became a day pupil at the City of London School, a relatively new foundation that had been established in Milk Street, Cheapside, in 1837. Talbot's eldest brother, Charles junior, had been notably successful there, as captain of the school and a leading figure in its cricket and football teams. Talbot soon made his own mark, particularly on the sporting field; a contemporary describes him as "full of life and vigour ... his strength of muscle, length of limb, boldness of attack, absolute fearlessness and perfection of nerve always made him conspicuous". Reed later showed some reticence about his academic achievements, asserting that one of his few successes was winning "the comfortable corner desk near the fire", reserved for the bottom place in Mathematics. In fact, in keeping with the school's record of producing men of letters and language scholars, Reed had excellent results in French, Greek and Latin, and had competed for the Sixth Form Latin prize. One of his school contemporaries was H. H. Asquith, the future British prime minister.
Despite evidence of considerable academic ability, Reed did not follow his brother Charles, who went on from the school to Trinity College, Cambridge. Instead, in 1869, Reed left the school to join the family firm, known as Sir Charles Reed & Sons or informally as the Fann Street Foundry, beginning a lifelong association with the printing trade. He found time, however, to pursue many other interests, physical, artistic and intellectual. Twice he walked the from London to Cambridge, each time leaving on Friday afternoon and arriving at St John's College for breakfast on Saturday. Reed was a competent swimmer, and won a Royal Humane Society medal for saving a cousin from drowning in rough seas. He was an accomplished pianist, a skilful pen-and-ink illustrator, and had an engaging style of writing. These artistic talents were put to service in the production of a family magazine, The Earlsfield Chronicle, which Reed edited (and largely wrote) from the mid-1870s. The magazine circulated only among the extended Reed family, and included serious articles ("Is total abstinence a moral duty?") alongside comic verses and cartoons.
Printer and typefounder
Although Reed would later jokingly describe his work for the family firm as "drudgery", in reality he was enthusiastic about the trade and worked hard to master it. Early in his career he met the leading printer and bibliographer of the day, William Blades, from whom he acquired a lasting fascination with the printing and typefounding crafts. While still relatively inexperienced, Reed was asked by Blades to help organise a major exhibition to mark the 400th anniversary of William Caxton's printing of The Game and Playe of the Chesse. This was thought to be the first book printed in England, in 1474, and the exhibition was originally planned for 1874. However, Blades's research indicated that Caxton's first printing in England had been in 1477, of a different book: The Dictes and Notable Wise Sayings of the Philosophers, so the quatercentenary celebrations were rescheduled accordingly. The exhibition was held during the summer of 1877, at South Kensington, and was opened by William Gladstone, the former and future prime minister. It included displays of Caxton's printed works, together with many examples of printing through the intervening years. Reed contributed an essay to the exhibition's catalogue, entitled "The Rise and Progress of Type-Founding in England". The exhibition was supported by leading London printers, publishers, booksellers, antiquarians and scholars, and attracted wide public interest.
Sir Charles Reed, who had been knighted on Gladstone's recommendation in 1874, died in 1881. A few months later, Talbot's elder brother Andrew retired from the business because of ill health. As a result, at the age of 29, Talbot became the sole managing director of the Fann Street business, a position he held until his death. In 1878, in response to a suggestion from Blades, Reed began work on a general history of typefounding in England, a task which occupied him intermittently for nearly ten years. Published by Elliot Stock in 1887 under the title of History of the Old English Letter Foundries, the book became a standard text on the subject. Its 21 chapters are illustrated throughout with examples of typefaces and symbols used for four centuries. The text is presented in modern style, but with the initial letter of each chapter ornately drawn from a 1544 pattern. Also in 1887 Reed produced a revised and enlarged specimen book for the Fann Street foundry, with many new typeface designs and artistic ornamentations.
As an acknowledged expert in his field, Reed was in demand as a lecturer to learned societies. Among the papers he delivered were "Old and New Fashions in Typography", to the Royal Society of Arts in 1890, and "On the Use and Classification of a Typographical Library", to the Library Association in 1892. After Blades's death in 1890, Reed prepared his former mentor's unfinished Pentateuch of Printing for publication, adding a long memorial tribute to Blades. His foundry cast custom type such as the Golden Type for William Morris's Kelmscott Press in 1890 and Reed persuaded Morris to deliver a lecture on "The Ideal Book" for the Bibliographical Society in 1893.
The Boy's Own Paper
The Reed family had longstanding connections with The Religious Tract Society (RTS), which had been founded in 1799 to publish and disseminate material of a Christian nature. Talbot's grandfather Andrew Reed, at the age of 12, had attended the Society's inaugural meeting; Charles Reed and his eldest son, Charles junior, were both active members. On 23 July 1878 an RTS subcommittee (including both Charles Reeds) recommended the publication of "a magazine for Boys to be issued weekly at a price of one penny". Although the Society had frequently expressed a desire to counter the "cheap and sensational" magazines that were read by young people, its main committee was initially hesitant about this proposal, fearing its financial implications. Finally, however, it felt obliged "to attempt an enterprise from which others shrank". Thereafter the committee moved swiftly, and the first issue of the new publication, The Boy's Own Paper, was on sale on 18 January 1879.
Although at that time his writing experience was limited, Reed was asked by his father and brother to contribute to the new venture, a challenge he accepted enthusiastically. Apart from his stories for The Earlsfield Chronicle, his sole prior experience of magazine writing had been an article entitled "Camping Out", for the Edinburgh-based young peoples' magazine Morning of Life. This account of a boating excursion on the Thames had appeared in 1875. For the first issue of the B.O.P., Reed wrote a school story, "My First Football Match" which, accompanied by a half-page illustration, appeared on the front page "by An Old Boy". The story was very well received, and prompted demands for more about "Parkhurst", the school where the football match was played. Reed responded with several more tales, among which were "The Parkhurst Paper Chase" and "The Parkhurst Boat Race".
In the new magazine's first year Reed was a regular contributor of articles and stories on a range of subjects, joining distinguished writers such as G. A. Henty, R.M. Ballantyne and Jules Verne. A prominent illustrator for the magazine was the artist and mountaineer Edward Whymper. Reed's association with the B.O.P. lasted for the remainder of his life; the magazine would be the initial publisher for almost all his subsequent output of fiction. This commitment to the B.O.P. delayed progress on his History of the Old English Letter Foundries, especially as Reed began writing regular columns and book reviews for the Leeds Mercury, now edited by his cousin, the younger Edward Baines.
The 1880s was a decade of growing national prosperity, and increasing numbers of families from the expanding middle classes were sending their sons to boarding schools. The B.O.P. editor, George Hutchison, felt that such schools would provide the ideal setting for stories in which a boy hero (or heroes) could display Christian principles and strength of character in the face of temptations, and planned to run a long serial story. Reed, who had not himself attended a boarding school, was not the obvious choice as the writer. However, the skill and imagination he had displayed in his short school stories convinced Hutchison that Reed should be given the assignment.
School stories
Reed's first response to the request for school stories for The Boy's Own Paper was The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch, which ran for 19 instalments from October 1880 to April 1881. The travels of a schoolboy's pocket watch are charted through school, university and, finally, India at the time of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The school, "Randlebury", is believed to be based, like "Parkhurst", on information Reed received from friends who had boarded at Radley. The success of the story encouraged the B.O.P.'''s editors to ask Reed to attempt a longer and more ambitious work. The result was The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's, which became the favourite and most influential of all Reed's stories. Extended over 38 episodes, each a self-contained unit within an overall plot, this was the first of a sequence of school stories, all serialised in the B.O.P. The boarding school milieu was repeated, with a few variations, in The Willoughby Captains (serialised 1883–84), The Master of the Shell (1887–88), The Cock-House at Fellsgarth (1891) and Tom, Dick and Harry (1892–93). Reed followed the suggestion of his editors by setting My Friend Smith (1882–83) in a different kind of school, a "modest establishment for the backward and troublesome". It was, however, the boarding school stories that endured and which became the standard model for school stories for many decades. All the serials were quickly issued in book form, and most were reprinted for the benefit of successive generations of boys, up to the 1950s. The model was imitated or copied by other writers for the next half century; according to historian Isabel Quigly, "Reed was a better writer than his followers, and has been diminished by their imitations."
In a biographical sketch written in 2004, the historian Jeffrey Richards characterises Reed's work as a mixing of the earlier school story traditions established by Dean Farrar and Thomas Hughes, crafted with a vivid readability. Reed dismissed Farrar's Eric, or, Little by Little as a religious tract thinly disguised as a school story, and sought to produce something more "manly". Many of the incidents and characterisations introduced by Reed in St. Dominic's became standard elements in his subsequent stories, and in those of his imitators. Quigly lists among other recurrent features the stolen exam paper, the innocent who is wrongly accused and ultimately justified after much proud suffering, the boating accident, the group rivalries, the noble friendships. Adult characters are largely stereotypes: a headmaster known as "the Doctor" and modelled on Thomas Arnold of Rugby, "the jabbering French master (pointed beard and two-tone shoes)", the popular games master, the dry pedant, the generally comic domestic staff. Reed established a tradition in which the fictional boarding school was peopled by such characters and was almost invariably represented in terms of "dark passages, iron bedsteads, scratched desks, chill dormitories and cosy, shabby studies". Quigly suggests that one reason for the success of Reed's stories and their long-lasting appeal is that they are not so much books about school as books about people. John Sime of the RTS, in a memorial tribute to Reed after his death, notes that the boys in the stories are recognisably of flesh and blood, with "just that spice of wickedness ... without which a boy is not a boy".
Personal life and other activities
In 1876 Reed married Elizabeth Greer, the daughter of Samuel MacCurdy Greer, a County Court judge and former MP for the County of Londonderry in the north of Ireland. Their first child, a daughter, died in infancy, but three healthy children followed: Charles in 1879, Margaret in 1882 and Talbot in 1886. The connection with Ireland was of great value to Reed, and the family regularly spent annual holidays on the shores of Lough Swilly in County Donegal.
Reed was constantly busy; he held the "loafer"—defined by him as "anyone who worked from nine to five and did nothing with the rest of the day"—in contempt. Alongside his heavy schedule of duties at the foundry and his prolific writing, he took his share in the supervision of the various charities founded by his grandfather Andrew Reed, and was a deacon at his local Congregational Church. In 1892 he was a co-founder of the Bibliographical Society and its first honorary secretary, an office he modestly agreed to hold "pro tem in the hopes of your finding a better man".
Physically active and energetic, Reed keenly followed his old school's fortunes on the sports field, on one occasion writing anxiously to the school about its apparent loss of enthusiasm for football and cricket. As part of a busy social life he regularly attended City of London Old Boys' reunion dinners, and was a member of two London clubs, the Savile and the Reform. In politics Reed was a Liberal, although he disagreed with Gladstone's Irish Home Rule policy. His busy and fulfilling life was punctuated from time to time by private tragedies. The loss of his baby daughter was followed, soon after, by the death of his younger brother Kenneth, drowned with a companion in Lough Allen in County Leitrim, while exploring the River Shannon. In 1883 his elder brother, The Rev. Charles Reed, "my 'father confessor' in times of all trouble", died after a fall during a walking holiday in Switzerland.
Death and legacy
Reed generally enjoyed vigorous good health. However, early in 1893 there were signs that his workload was taking its toll. In January of that year he left London for an extended stay in Ireland, hoping to recover his energies. He returned to his various duties in May, but later in the summer became seriously ill with what was identified at the time as "consumption", and was probably pulmonary tuberculosis.Cox, pp. 46–47 He relinquished the secretaryship of the Bibliographical Society and returned to Ireland where, though largely confined indoors, he continued writing his regular weekly column for the Leeds Mercury and finished his final novel, Kilgorman. Letters to friends at home indicated that he remained in good spirits and was hopeful of recovery. However, his condition worsened, and he was advised to return home for urgent medical treatment. Back in London he wrote his last piece for the Mercury, a review of Seventy Years of Irish Life by W.R. Le Fanu. He died at his home in Highgate on 28 November 1893, aged 41, and was buried in Abney Park Cemetery, by the side of his father and grandfather.Morison, p. 72
Among the many tributes paid to Reed, Joseph Sime spoke for "the boys of the English-speaking world" who had "lost one of their best friends". Sime wrote of Reed's particular empathy with the young: "He possessed in himself the healthy freshness of heart of boyhood ... and could place himself sympathetically at the boy's standpoint in life." Reed's grave was visited by boys and their families for many years. He died a wealthy man, although long before his death he had transferred the copyright of his books to the Religious Tract Society for a nominal sum.
Reed's regular readers included the young P.G. Wodehouse, who particularly loved the school stories. Wodehouse's literary biographer Benny Green, while excoriating Reed as a "hereditary prig" and a "religious huckster", accepts that he influenced Wodehouse, and cites in particular The Willoughby Captains. Green also echoes Quigly in asserting that none of Reed's successors could match his abilities as a storyteller. Quigly summarises Reed's legacy to future school story writers: he established a genre by "alter[ing] the shapeless, long-winded, garrulous and moralistic school story" into something popular and readable, a convention followed by all his successors. Reed himself expressed the guiding principles of his life in a letter addressed to a new Boys' Club in Manchester: "The strong fellows should look after the weak, the active must look after the lazy, the merry must cheer up the dull, the sharp must lend a helping hand to the duffer. Pull together in all your learning, playing and praying."
The grave in Abney Park was eventually surmounted by a memorial stone for Reed's family in the style of a Celtic cross, reflecting their connections to Ireland. It was cut by the O'Shea brothers' firm. Reed's biographer, the printing executive and historian Stanley Morison, suggests that Reed's legacy is his History of the Old English Letter Foundries, while Jack Cox, historian of the B.O.P, asserts that the school stories first serialised in the magazine are the writer's true memorial.
After Reed's death, Elizabeth Reed agreed that his considerable personal library should be given to the St Bride Foundation Institute, whose collection of typographic literature included the library of Reed's early mentor, William Blades. This collection now forms part of the St Bride Library, The books and collection of Reed's company, the Fann Street Foundry, went to first its later purchaser Stephenson Blake and then to the Type Museum collection.
Bibliography
This does not include Reed's uncollected short stories, journalism or trade publications. All the school stories, and much of the other fiction, first appeared in The Boy's Own Paper.
Fiction
The Adventures of a Three Guinea Watch Serialised in B.O.P. 1880–81. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1883.
The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's Serialised in B.O.P. 1881–82. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1887.
My Friend Smith Serialised in B.O.P. 1882–83. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1889.
The Willoughby Captains Serialised in B.O.P. 1883–84. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1887.
Reginald Cruden; A Tale of City Life Serialised in B.O.P. 1885. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1903.
Follow My Leader, or, The Boys of Templeton First published in book form by Cassell & Co., London, 1885.
A Dog With a Bad Name Serialised in B.O.P. 1886–87. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1894.
The Master of the Shell Serialised in B.O.P. 1887–88. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1901.
Sir Ludar Serialised in B.O.P. 1889. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1889.
Roger Ingleton, Minor First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1891.
The Cock-House at Fellsgarth Serialised in B.O.P. 1891. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1893.
Tom, Dick and Harry Serialised in B.O.P.'' 1892–93. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1894.
Kilgorman First published in book form by T. Nelson and Sons Ltd, London, 1895.
Parkhurst Boys and Other Stories of School Life First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1914.
Boycotted and other stories 15 assorted short stories. First published in book form by The Religious Tract Society, London, 1917.
Non-fiction
A History of the Old English Letter Foundries First published by Elliot Stock, London, 1887; reprinted in 1952 with editing by A.F. Johnson and Stanley Morison.
The Pentateuch of Printing Main text by William Blades. Edited for publication by Talbot Baines Reed, with a memoir of Blades. First published by Elliot Stock, London. 1891.
Notes
References
Works cited
External links
1852 births
1893 deaths
19th-century English people
19th-century English novelists
Burials at Abney Park Cemetery
English children's writers
People from Hackney Central
English typographers and type designers
Historians of printing
19th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis deaths in England
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The body of Faith Hedgepeth (born September 26, 1992), an undergraduate student in her third year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), was found in her apartment by a friend on the morning of September 7, 2012. She had been beaten over the head with a blunt instrument, later found to be an empty liquor bottle, and evidence of semen and male DNA was present at the crime scene. The last time she was known for certain to be alive was much earlier that morning, when she went to bed after returning from a local nightclub with her roommate.
Police have recovered considerable forensic evidence in the case, but so far it has served to eliminate one likely suspect, a former boyfriend of her roommate who reportedly expressed anger and resentment toward Hedgepeth, even supposedly threatening to kill her if he could not reunite with her roommate. His DNA, however, did not match that left at the scene. A note left at the scene, suggesting the writer was jealous, is also believed to have been written by the killer; it was among a large group of documents released by police two years after the crime, following a court action brought by several local media outlets.
Four years after the killing, a Virginia DNA testing company prepared and released, at police's behest, an image showing what the suspect might look like based on his genetic phenotype. A voicemail possibly accidentally recorded by Hedgepeth may also capture some of the events that led to her death.
In September 2021 the Chapel Hill Police Department announced an arrest in the case. The suspect, not initially considered, had been linked to the case through DNA evidence after a drunken-driving arrest the month before.
Background
A member of the Haliwa-Saponi Native American tribe recognized by the state of North Carolina, Faith Hedgepeth was born in 1992 in Warren County, part of the tribe's traditional territory. Her parents divorced within a year of her birth, and she was raised by her mother, with help from an older sister, in Hollister and Warrenton. Connie Hedgepeth named her second daughter Faith because she believed that was what she needed to raise a fourth child when she already had two sons, a daughter and a husband with a drug problem.
In high school, Hedgepeth was an honor student, a cheerleader and a member of many extracurricular clubs and organizations. She did well enough academically to earn a Gates Millennium Scholarship to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her father had attended UNC-CH as well, but had dropped out. She hoped to be the first in her family to graduate from college. After undergraduate studies, she was considering further studies to become either a pediatrician or teacher.
Her first two years at the university went well for her, although she took the spring 2012 semester off. She remained in the Chapel Hill area over the summer, living in an off-campus apartment at the Hawthorne at the View complex between Chapel Hill and Durham, on the line between Durham and Orange counties, during the month of August. She planned to move to another apartment after her financial aid for the fall semester was made available to her. She shared the apartment with Karena Rosario, with whom she had been friends since freshman year, and Rosario's boyfriend, Eriq Takoy Jones.
The relationship between Jones and Rosario had been marked by domestic violence, and eventually she ended it and he moved out. However, he had in early July 2012 twice attempted to break into the apartment, even after Rosario changed the locks. Hedgepeth eventually drove Rosario to court to get a protective order that required Jones to stay away from the apartment. Jones reportedly resented Hedgepeth's influence over his former girlfriend, and at one point reportedly threatened during a phone conversation with Hedgepeth to kill her if he could not get back together with Rosario.
Homicide
The evening of September 6, 2012, a Thursday, began at 5:45 p.m. with Hedgepeth attending a rush event for the campus chapter of Alpha Pi Omega, a historically Native American sorority she hoped to join. At 7:15 she left, saying she had to work on a paper she was writing about the history of her tribe. She and Rosario went to the university's Davis Library to study together at 8 p.m. Between 8:30 and 9 she exchanged texts with her father about her hopes to join the sorority.
Hedgepeth left Rosario there briefly and returned around 11:30, after which they returned to their apartment together, arriving there around midnight. A half-hour later they left again, heading for The Thrill, a now-closed nightclub in downtown Chapel Hill which admitted customers under the legal drinking age of 21 to dance. The two young women arrived at The Thrill around 12:40 a.m. After almost an hour and a half of dancing, Rosario told police later that she was having an upset stomach and wanted to leave. Security cameras at the club show her and Hedgepeth leaving at 2:06 a.m.; it is the last visual record of her presence anywhere before the killing.
By 3 a.m. Hedgepeth and Rosario had returned to their apartment. A woman who lived below the two and was awake watching television said that she heard three thumping noises, which she described as similar to a heavy bag being dropped or furniture being overturned, shortly afterward. Hedgepeth's Facebook page was also accessed around the same time.
At 3:40 a.m., a text was sent from Hedgepeth's phone to that of Brandon Edwards, a former boyfriend of Rosario, saying "Hey b. Can you come over here please. Rosario needs you more aha. You know. Please let her know you care." Three minutes later, another text was sent from Hedgepeth's phone to Edwards' with the single word "than," believed to be a correction for the "aha" in the previous text. That was the last evidence of activity from her phone. At 4:16 a.m., Edwards sent a return text asking who had sent the previous text.
Rosario's phone records show she was also trying to call Edwards around the same time. He did not answer, and when he did not she tried to call Jordan McCrary, a UNC-CH soccer player she knew. At 4:25 a.m., she left the apartment to get in McCrary's car. At that time, Rosario said later, she believed Hedgepeth was asleep in her room, and left the apartment's door unlocked.
McCrary drove Rosario to the home of another acquaintance on West Longview Street in Chapel Hill. She put the time of her arrival there at around 4:30 a.m. After spending the rest of the night and the early morning there, a short time after 10:30 she began trying to arrange a ride home. After attempting to reach Hedgepeth, who did not answer, Rosario instead called another friend, Marisol Rangel, who came and took her back to her apartment.
When they arrived there, shortly before 11 a.m., they entered and called for Hedgepeth, who did not respond. In her bedroom, they found her bloodied body, wrapped in a quilt, partially nude. They immediately dialed 9-1-1 and informed police.
Investigation
Details of the investigation were not discussed publicly at first, a deviation from the Chapel Hill police's usual practice. The town obtained a court order sealing all records as they were collected. Police collected semen from the scene and used it to develop a DNA profile; it reportedly was consistent with male DNA found elsewhere in the apartment. The autopsy determined that Hedgepeth had died from blunt force trauma to the head, likely a result of being hit by an empty rum bottle in the apartment.
Jones seemed to be a very strong suspect from the beginning. Police learned of his history of domestic violence and his threat against Hedgepeth. They also found that the night before, around 6 p.m., he had texted an acquaintance asking for forgiveness "for what I am about to do" and then posted the same message on his Twitter feed. Three days later, he changed the banner on his Facebook page to read "Dear Lord, Forgive me for all of my sins and the sins I may commit today. Protect me from the girls who don't deserve me and the ones who wish me dead today."
Police sought a DNA sample from Jones, whom they considered a person of interest. After some initial resistance, he complied. His DNA did not match the sample from the apartment, and they excluded him as a suspect. DNA from Edwards and many other men whom police found had been at The Thrill during the same time as Rosario and Hedgepeth was also tested, with the same result.
Within days the university's board of trustees, the local Crime Stoppers chapter, the Haliwa-Saponi tribe, and the apartment complex had offered a combined $29,000 in reward money for information leading to an arrest. Police hoped the reward money would lead to a quick resolution of the case, as their resources were limited. In the 2008 murder of Eve Carson, who at the time was UNC-CH's undergraduate student body president, a $25,000 reward had led to the killers' arrest. Two months later, the office of governor Bev Perdue added another $10,000 to the reward for Hedgepeth's killer.
Seal on case records
In November, The Daily Tar Heel, UNC-CH's student newspaper, petitioned the judge who had ordered the investigation records sealed to release an early search warrant in the case. Instead, the judge ordered it resealed for another 45 days. At that time, the Chapel Hill police had not even released Hedgepeth's cause of death, although her parents told the media that their daughter's death certificate said she had been beaten.
Police announced in January that the DNA from the scene had come back as belonging to a male. From the crime scene and other evidence the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had developed a profile of the man. They said it was likely that he had lived near Hedgepeth in the past, had expressed an interest in her and his behavior may have changed since the crime, including showing an unusual interest in the case. Notwithstanding this release of information, the town successfully petitioned the court to keep the warrants under seal, saying that phase of the investigation was still not complete; in May 2013 the court extended the seal another 60 days.
In September 2013, a year after the killing, Chapel Hill police formally requested the assistance of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, which had provided some help earlier in the investigation, with the case. "We're working the case hard, and we've used all the possible resources," said Chief Chris Blue. However, he would not share any more information about the case.
Two months later, the Tar Heel noted that the Hedgepeth case remained open, along with the death case of David Shannon, a UNC-CH freshman whose body had been found on the grounds of a Carrboro cement plant the previous October 27 (while he had died from a fall, the autopsy found he was severely intoxicated, and the Carrboro police suspected hazing and believed there might be other students who could tell them more about the circumstances of Shannon's death). In Hedgepeth's case, there had been no new information about a possible suspect since January. Yet the case records remained under court-ordered seal.
In March 2014 the Tar Heel was joined by the Raleigh News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting Company, which owns three television and radio stations in the Research Triangle area, in opposing the district attorney's motion to extend the seal another 60 days. They argued that the order was not justified by a compelling interest on the state's part, and that some of the orders had been issued before the records covered by them had been created, meaning the argument for sealing them was speculative. During a hearing on the motion, the district attorney filed a more specific accounting of what investigative work had been done, allowing the media to report for the first time on what police had searched in the immediate aftermath of the crime. "Eighteen months goes by and no one's been charged and no one's been arrested," said a lawyer for the Tar Heel. "The public has the right to assume the trail has gone cold, or it's not being investigated in a diligent manner." In response, the district attorney's office argued that releasing the detailed records at that point would definitely hinder the investigation, and the records remained under seal.
Criticism of seal
The following month, Chelsea Dulaney, a reporter who had originally covered the case at the Tar Heel, wrote an article on the Atavist platform taking a skeptical look at the sealing of the case. She speculated that the seal's real purpose was to conceal early missteps by the Chapel Hill police, who might also not have been competent enough to handle the investigation by themselves. The town's court filings, she noted, revealed that after the first two months of the investigation no new search warrants had been sought. "We have to ask, how hot is it?" asked one of the lawyers representing the media.
Dulaney talked to the residents of the apartments at Hawthorne at the View who lived near Hedgepeth and Rosario. They told her that during the preceding summer, they strongly suspected the domestic violence later reported between Rosario and Jones; they thought the police presence on the day the body was found was related to that until they learned otherwise.
Two of the neighbors told Dulaney that while the police sealed off the four-unit block where Hedgepeth and Rosario lived with crime scene tape, they only searched the women's apartment and not any of the others in it. Nor did they search the woods behind the apartments, and they only returned later to search one other apartment in the complex. They did not seem to canvass the area either, never knocking on doors and asking residents what they might have seen. The police also left Hedgepeth's car unsecured while they searched the apartments.
When the State Bureau of Investigation officers began investigating the case late in 2013, they also interviewed residents of Hawthorne at the View. One resident who spoke to Dulaney said it was clear to her that the SBI investigators were better trained than their Chapel Hill counterparts had been. The agent who interviewed her asked questions that elicited more useful information from her, she recalled.
In downtown Chapel Hill, Dulaney talked to the owner of a towing service who had the contract for the Thrill's parking lot. He had set up a system of security cameras to monitor activity in the club's parking lot that might have possibly recorded anything that happened outside of the club involving Hedgepeth and Rosario while they were there that morning, or after they left. The police did not ask to see it until shortly before Dulaney wrote the article, almost 19 months after the crime. By that time, he told her, any footage from that night had been long since recorded over.
Release of records
The court ordered the records unsealed in July 2014. Media organizations were able to review and report on the search warrant applications and the investigative notes that had supported them, with most names redacted, for not only the residences and cars but Hedgepeth's phone, computer, Facebook records and bank account. Also released was the transcript of Rosario's 9-1-1 call, and the content of the early-morning text messages as well as the timeline of Rosario and Hedgepeth's actions the night before the body was found.
In September 2014, almost two years after Hedgepeth's death, the autopsy report was released. It confirmed what was on her death certificate, that she had died of blunt force trauma to the head. She had numerous cuts and bruises as well as blood under her fingernails, suggesting she had struggled with her killer. The DNA taken from the semen was matched to DNA elsewhere at the scene.
Evidence
The released records included the recording of Rosario's 9-1-1 call and two pieces of evidence that were seen as potentially helpful in narrowing down the killer's identity. The DNA profile was also used later to generate an image of the potential suspect. "Investigators have excellent evidence in this case," Chief Blue said when the documents were released. "This is not a cold case. It has been and remains an active investigation."
9-1-1 call
News & Observer reporter Tom Gasparoli, who covered the case extensively for his newspaper, has also devoted most of his own blog to pondering the evidence and keeping the case alive. To him, Rosario's call raised many questions. "To me, the whole call reeks of unusual," he wrote in 2017 on the case's fifth anniversary.
Gasparoli raised the possibility that Rosario's friend Marisol Rangel, whose voice sounds to him more like the constantly sobbing caller, was the real caller, only later identifying herself as Rosario after repeated requests from the dispatcher for her name. And if it was Rosario, she never mentions that Rangel accompanied her to the apartment. The caller also does not mention Hedgepeth's name in a call that lasts nearly eight minutes, only describing the body she has come upon as "her friend."
And why, Gasparoli asked, does the caller seem reluctant to touch Hedgepeth's body despite repeated pleas from the dispatcher to at least see if she is still breathing? If Rosario was not able to bring herself to do so, could she not have asked Rangel to do so? "I have often thought," Gaparoli wrote,"[that] if it was [Rosario], that she didn't call 9-1-1 the moment she first saw [Hedgepeth]."
Note left at scene
Among the evidence collected was a note left near Hedgepeth's body with the text:
It was sloppily written in ballpoint pen on what was determined to be the torn-off bottom of a white paper bag of the type commonly used for carry-out food. Police believe the bag may have come from Time-Out, a popular 24-hour restaurant in Chapel Hill that would have been the only place open at the time Hedgepeth and Rosario left The Thrill. It uses such bags and is a short distance away from the nightclub.
Investigators have not said whether they have had the handwriting analyzed. The website Crime Watch Daily had an expert, Peggy Walla, look at photos of the note. She noted that it was clean of the blood reportedly found splattered all over the room, suggesting it was written either away from the crime scene or beforehand. The writer may have been using their non-dominant hand in an attempt to disguise their handwriting. Walla believes the writer was particularly agitated, likely to the point of homicidal rage, by being called "stupid."
In his post marking the fifth anniversary of the case, Gasparoli said a law enforcement source he talked to about the case refused to comment on whether the note was "odd" even as the source answered other questions. He elaborates that the words may have been intended to be read in a different order, producing wording that makes more sense ("I'm not jealous ... stupid bitch," for instance). In addition, he theorizes that more than one writer may have been involved, or that not all of it may have been written at the same time.
The word "STUPID" especially looks to Gasparoli as if it might have been written separately from the other words, as it is written much more clearly and off to the side. The swash extending leftward from the counter on the "P" in "STUPID" struck him as unusually distinctive. "[It] looks quite different, much more precise than any other letter in the note," he says. It seems to Gasparoli to suggest a female writer, or at least one calmer and more intelligent than the lettering elsewhere on the note.
Gasparoli questioned in fact what purpose would be served by leaving it there. As a message to Hedgepeth, it made no sense to leave it next to her body if she was dead; if it was written by the killer or killers, it could have been particularly incriminating evidence and they had to be aware of that possibility. It looked to him, in fact, "[a]lmost as if it were a red herring ... left for some other reason than to reflect the real feelings of the killer(s). Left ... to confuse."
Conversation accidentally recorded
A friend of Hedgepeth's shared with police a long conversation, perhaps inadvertently recorded, when Hedgepeth's phone pocket-dialed them on the night before the murder, that may have some bearing on the case. It consisted of a three-way conversation, three minutes long, between what sounds to be Hedgepeth and a male and female, with music in the background. It was timestamped at 1:23 a.m., when the night's timeline has Hedgepeth at The Thrill.
It was mostly inaudible and of minimal evidentiary value until Crime Watch Daily hired audio expert Arlo West, who specializes in enhancing such recordings. He claimed he heard Hedgepeth crying for help while the female says "I think she's dying" and the male says "Do it anyhow" after a long discussion in which the female seems to get angrier. The male and female use the name "Eriq" and "Rosie" (which is Rosario's nickname) respectively. Hedgepeth's father is convinced what was recorded was of his daughter's death; West agrees.
The website informed the Chapel Hill police of West's findings, and they agreed to consider West's enhanced version and evaluate it. However, due to the time of the message, they do not believe it to be a recording of the killing; the music in the background further suggests it was recorded at The Thrill. Several months later, they added that the metadata associated with the call reinforces this belief.
West, for his part, cites a known software issue with phones like Hedgepeth's that resulted in inaccurate timestamps. He discounts the background sound as being music, since his analysis did not produce any sounds like percussion, a heavy bass or synthesizers. Further, he adds, there are none of the background sounds, like glasses clinking and others talking, that one would associate with a nightclub.
Image of suspect generated from DNA profile
On a September 23, 2016, episode of the ABC News program 20/20, Chapel Hill police released an image generated by Parabon NanoLabs, a genetic testing company in Reston, Virginia, of what the suspect who left the semen might look like based purely on the phenotype in his DNA profile. Parabon's president told ABC that Snapshot, the program his company used to create the image, "predicts eye color, hair color, skin color, freckling, face morphology and ancestry." The image included a chart listing the probability that the suspect had the traits he was assigned.
According to the image, the suspect was "very strongly Native American and European mixed ancestry or Latino." Most of his genetic markers pointed to Mexican, Colombian and Iberian ancestry, with some other South American and African countries making up the balance. Parabon believed with over 80 percent confidence that the suspect would have a skin tone in the olive range, with very few freckles or none at all and black hair. It did not make any predictions as to his height and weight.
Theories
Chapel Hill police have not said much about how the crime happened despite the September 2021 arrest. In the past they said they do not believe the killing was a mere crime of opportunity by a stranger, and instead it was committed by someone in her social group, likely someone who knew her through UNC-CH. They are certain the killer or killers knew Hedgepeth, and have interviewed 2,000 people, with DNA tests done on 750 of those. They mapped the relations of many of those interviewees with Hedgepeth and each other, and had reportedly narrowed a pool of a thousand possible suspects down to 10. "This is not a cold case. It's never been a cold case," Chief Blue told Gasparoli in 2016.
A year later, Gasparoli said that he believed that the killer was "just outside" Hedgepeth's closest friends and acquaintances. "Good chance this person didn't know [Hedgepeth] or investigators would know who it was," he wrote. They may, however, have been acting out of anger at some grievance she caused to someone closer to her.
Blue declined to answer Gasparoli's question at that time as to whether investigators believed more than one person had been involved. "It's a piece of the puzzle we do not have if we connect the direct physical evidence," Celisa Lehew, who took over the case as the department's new chief investigator in 2016, told the reporter regarding that theory. "There was some knowledge that two people lived there."
Speculation has sometimes focused on Rosario, Hedgepeth's roommate at the time, due to her 9-1-1 call, the last texts sent from Hedgepeth's phone to her former boyfriend suggesting that "[Rosario] needs you more than you know," the woman addressed as "Rosie" on the voicemail conversation and her decision to leave the apartment unlocked with, she claims, a sleeping Hedgepeth inside, to go sleep somewhere else at 4:30 the morning of the killing. Although she has left North Carolina and said very little about the case since then, Gasparoli wrote in 2017 that he learned from his police sources that they still regularly speak with her, and she cooperates. "They do believe there is more Rosario can tell them," he says. "[It] sounds to me like [Rosario] has been in the crosshairs ... as a key figure who knows more than she says she knows."
Arrest
On September 16, 2021, the Chapel Hill Police Department arrested Miguel Salguero-Olivares, 28, of Durham, on a first-degree murder charge in Hedgepeth's death. He had not been a suspect originally, but was identified through DNA samples after he had been arrested on a drunken-driving charge in Wake County the preceding month. In a statement, the police asked the public to bear with them as they sorted the details out. "This story will take time to completely unfold", said Chief Blue.
See also
Deaths in September 2012
List of 2012 murders in the United States
List of unsolved murders
Crime in North Carolina
Sexual victimization of native American women
2015 Chapel Hill shooting, three UNCCH/NCSU students killed in off-campus residence
Murder of Jane Britton, similar 1969 killing of a Harvard graduate student at her apartment, where police also kept information to themselves and perplexing evidence was found next to the body, attributed in 2018 to a long-dead man via DNA evidence.
References
External links
Case documents released in 2014
2012 in North Carolina
2012 murders in the United States
Murder in North Carolina
Deaths by beating in the United States
Deaths by person in the United States
Violence against women in the United States
Incidents of violence against women
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill events
September 2012 crimes
Women in North Carolina
Unsolved murders in the United States
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Antonio Diego Voci (VOH-chee 1920–1985) was an internationally collected Italian figurative artist with the largest group of owners of his works residing in Switzerland, England, Germany, Italy, Canada and the US; as well as various works scattered the world over. Although constantly drawing or painting from childhood to the day he succumbed to lung cancer, Diego's most productive period was the last quarter century of his life which began when he met Helga Drössler in January 1960 in Paris. A significant turning point in Diego's career, Diego said, "My life took on new meaning. I became more." Helga who became Diego's wife, lover, best friend and confidant, published seven chapters of her life with Diego on Artifact Collectors. Within those 25 abundant years Diego created 4000 oils, mostly on canvas, and many thousands of drawings.
"Each movement had its great masters, but there are very few who could create art unconfined by a single style like Diego." – Christopher Voci
Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and Fauvism all experienced the hand of Diego Voci who was fascinated by the beauty and mystery of the face and figure, whether the female body nude or in ballet, or the etched lines of life's hardships in an old man's face, or the grace and power of the horse. Diego's versatility was his strength. Diego not only saw and realized human frailty, the desire and longing of the human to be something more, seeking but not to find; but also he understood man's animal instinct to overpower, offset by the object's instinct to resist.
1920–1938: early life
Antonio Diego Voci (VOH-chee), the youngest of 3 brothers was born Antonio Innocenzo Voci on 10 August 1920 in the mountainous region near Catanzaro, Italy, in the small village of Gasperina, to Giuseppantonio Voci and Arcangela Messina Voci, a Catholic family of modest means. From childhood Diego felt compelled to draw as constantly and effortlessly as he drew a breath, endowed by nature to do both.
At an early age Diego took charge of his own life direction. Diego proudly boasted his independent, I'll-do-it-myself spirit when at age eight, he carved his own religious statue when his father would not buy the one he wanted in a Rome store window. Diego was called on in school for art, design and decoration projects. By age 12 he was awarded a year scholarship to a design school. Diego proudly recalled that in his youth religious artist Antonino Calcagnadoro (1876–1935) let him help paint a church fresco. Diego studied sculpture and painting for three years at Lyce d'Art, followed by studies of Greek and Latin, as well as tailoring.
All three Voci boys were sent to Reggio to study tailoring. In December 1920, four months after Diego's birth, their father took the oldest brother Vincenzo, age 15, to Philadelphia where they both worked as tailors. For 3 ½ years Messina Arcangela raised "Toto", her pet name for Diego, until her husband came back to Gasperina with enough money to open a dry goods store. In 1930, Vincenzo returned to Italy to marry 17-year-old Anna Spadea, (born 1913 Gasperina) whom he took back to Philadelphia continuing as one of the area's finest tailors and designer for Pincus Manufacturing. The middle brother, Giuseppe became a professional musician and played in the Rome Orchestra.
Diego sold his first painting at age 18. Typical of most parents, Giuseppantonio, encouraged his son to follow in his traditional profession, "Toto [Diego], the God of Art does not give bread." But the compulsion in Diego for art was too strong, the pleasure too rewarding, "'I was born to paint." And paint he did in the thousands, and drawings beyond count. In addition to his vast array of artworks, Diego would also design and make his own clothes as an adult, and for the ladies of his liking.
Diego relied on himself for money. All members of the Voci family agree Diego never received financing from the family, and that he never worked at any occupation other than art. Upon venturing out on his own Diego summoned his practical side to employ his art talent to works of art he knew the public would quickly buy, to raise money or trade for food, bed, paint and canvas, and to finance his study, to expand knowledge, experience and skill. Also to enjoy pleasures in life, and sports. (Diego was a competitive cyclist in high school.) His time to create his own masterworks would come later.
1939–1948: school and WWII
Art schools and World War II military service in the Italian Army would consume Diego's life through 1948. At 19 Diego enrolled at the Florence Academy of Arts in San Marco Piazza. At 20 his art studies were interrupted by World War II.
1945 with the war over, Diego then returned to the Florence Academy of Arts for 3 years studying the classic styles of sculpture and painting of Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo and many others.
World War II POW: art was the key to survival
During World War II, Diego was sent to the front lines as an Italian Army soldier to fight against the Germans. Conditions were horrible. When he came home on leave Diego's mother Messina Arcangela had to boil her son's uniform to get rid of the lice infestation. On his return Diego was captured and sent to a German Prisoner of War Camp in North Germany. With luck or ingenuity or both, Diego the survivor befriended the German Camp Commander who was so impressed with Diego's artistic talents, he moved Diego to his quarters to live and make paintings and caricatures. Diego enjoyed those privileges until the end of the war. It is generally believed that Diego also befriended an American Officer who was a prisoner in the same camp which led to the important contribution the American Military Community would play in Diego's career providing a reliable source of income. Diego's works were likely signed "Voci", as it was not until 1965/6 the "Diego" signature was prominently used.
In 1948 Diego moved to Paris to further his education at Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In Paris Diego learned "the real academy is the café, study people, meet so many artists."
Diego thrived on camaraderie, as did other artists before him, such as Amedeo Modigliani, both "figurative" artists, both Italian born, both migrated to Paris. Among Diego's many facets was a drive never to be poor, never to live a tormented drug ridden life of Amedeo Modigliani who at age 35 "died in Paris exacerbated by poverty only one exhibition to his credit." or the tortured life of Vincent van Gogh who died at age 37, with only one painting purchased in his lifetime. Diego greatly admired the exceptional work of both artists, but, unlike both artists who found few buyers for their work, in their lifetime, Diego did for his.
Diego's influences
Professor Felice Carena (1879–1966), who was one of Italy's great religious artists displayed in Museum of Modern Religious Art in Rome, was a mentor for Diego. Diego in his youth also worked as an assistant to Antonino Calcagnadoro (1876–1935), who was known for his church frescos. Diego admired Renoir, Cézanne, Degas, Modigliani and Van Gogh. There was a reluctance in Diego to pinpoint his early inspiration. When asked in 1973 Diego said, "Michelangelo is the greatest. There are so many. Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Rembrandt. And Miró, Chagall, Picasso. So many."
1949–1959 the painter explorer
Venice
The powerful urge was deep in Diego's DNA to explore the world and its people to capture in art all that it offered. During Diego's extensive travels he said "I was always painting, always learning ...to fill a need to express."
1949 Diego established his home base in Venice, where he would paint, travel and return. That need to explore the world took Diego to Spain, Portugal, North Africa, Turkey, England and Scandinavia. Canadian Art Dealer, Joy Gibson Naffouj wrote, "Diego displayed his work often...displaying his work in Torino, Capri and Venice. His first one man show was at the Galleria La Bussula in Torino." In 1951 the city of Venice sponsored a competition, a showcase for Italian artists. Carlo Carrà (1881–1966) noted figure of the Futurist movement and arguably the most important Italian artist at the time, won first prize. Diego won second prize. Also, in 1951 Diego had a one-man show in Switzerland and painted for galleries who represented master artists including Rembrandt, Renoir, and Monet. Diego was commissioned to do frescos, sculptures, relief sculptures and canvases by private collections, Italian restaurants, and galleries throughout Europe. After his one-man show in Lugano in 1953, Diego travelled continuously stopping to show in Milano, Rome and Genoa.
First marriage
Also in 1953, Diego met 16-year-old Josiane Schäfer, a ski instructor and daughter of a well-to-do Swiss family, who at 18 would become Mrs. Voci. The Schäfer family owned a mountain cabin for skiing.
Diego travels with nephew
In 1956, Diego moved to Wiesbaden, Germany with his first wife Josiane. Diego's American nephew, Anthony (Tony) Voci, son of Vincenzo, was stationed at Wurzburg U.S. Army Base as a Tank Commander. Tony was impressed that Diego knew the Base Commander and obtained leave time for him. Diego showed Tony the portraits of Officers he was commissioned to do, but said, "That is not art!"
Anthony spent much of his free time touring Germany, Switzerland and Northern Italy with Diego. Tony said, "Anytime there was an espresso sign we stopped. Everybody knew Diego. He would sketch the waitress on a napkin and hand it to her. Diego would paint or sketch nearly every waking minute while traveling together."
It is notable that Anthony Voci is the only known person identified to date that is in possession of any art work by Diego from childhood to 1957. Tony recalls on their travels together through Europe, he said "I'm hungry". Diego stopped and said "You are hungry? I paint you something to eat.", and minutes later gave Tony a memento of his time when his uncle played a joke on him. Tony, at 80, is living in Philadelphia where this gift from Diego is displayed.
Another day, Diego swiftly completed a gouache of a Paris "Café Scene" as a second gift to his nephew, also dated 1957, and signed "D. Voci", which Tony since gave to his son, Chris Voci. View serious works by Diego in Gallery Section.
1960–1985 life with Helga Drössler Voci
Paris
The 25 years of Diego Voci with Helga Drössler Voci (born in Prague in 1939) were by every standard his best contributing years to the world of art. The following paragraph is excerpted from "HELGA and DIEGO" Chapter Two
Diego Voci and caricatures
Diego was popular in the World War II POW Camp doing caricatures and portraits Connections Diego made with the American prisoners led to Diego's later cash flow source in the American Officer's Clubs that dotted Europe after WWII. Moreover, Diego considered the practice of caricatures that he swiftly and superbly executed to be an excellent study of people and faces, his favorite subjects.
Helga Voci describes her discovery,
Southern Europe and London
Summer of 1960 in Paris, Helga fell ill where she was hospitalized for 3 months with Diego at her side, at which time Diego officially registered as a resident of Paris. Diego took Helga to South France to relax in "very good hotels" for recovery until the holiday season. Helga went to Bavaria to be with her family. Diego went to London to rent a furnished apartment in Soho where Helga joined him in January. Diego painted.
By fall 1961 Diego wanted to escape London weather. They spent until January 1962 in a little fishing village in Spain called Almunecar, an artist's colony. Diego painted, and played cards with fisherman and studied the village people he would portray from memory (example on left). Diego said he never copies. He creates from his vast library of mental images collected from international travels and mingling with everyday people.
February 1962, their next stop was Morocco and while there Diego received a commission in Marrakesh at the American Officer's Club. Diego traveled throughout Morocco while Helga took a job at a travel agency in Lugano, Switzerland. On the way to meet Helga in Lugano, Diego made arrangements for Globart in Milano to show his paintings. August 1962, Diego joined Helga in Switzerland renting a boathouse on Lake Constance.
Schlossgalerie Zurich
A notable event for Diego in the fall of 1962 was the agreement he made with Schlossgalerie in Zurich under the name "Antonio Voci" (no Diego) to sell his paintings to their wealthy patrons, many of whom were horse aficionados. Schlossgalerie provided Diego a studio. He signed his works "A. Voci"
Helga Voci said, "The owner [R. Buri] sold quite many paintings." During this time Diego also went to Aviano Air Base to sell paintings and would do caricatures in the Officer's club.
JFK
In 1963, a painting by Diego signed "Voci" was selected by an Air Force Officer from the 526th Tactical Interceptor Squadron (later renamed 526th Tactical Fighter Sq.) and flown from Aviano Air Force Base to Wiesbaden. On the evening of 25 June 1963, the painting was presented to President John F. Kennedy at the General Von Steuben Hotel. The President left Wiesbaden the next morning for Berlin for his famous Ich bin ein Berliner speech.
Return to Italy
Diego longed to leave Switzerland to return to the warmer southern country where he felt more at ease and more inspired to paint. As Victoria Williams wrote in the TV Guide, "Where people gather in groups to talk on the street, play games in the yard, sit in parks, lovers, strangers, the poor, the rich, mothers, fathers, children, happy people, sad people. These are the subjects of Diego."
Helga Voci wrote,
Germany – Naffouj and Dahms galleries
The sequence of four women entering Diego's life and the impact on Diego's success cannot be overestimated. First, 1960 was Helga for 25 years. Then, in 1965 Joy Gibson, a Canadian art dealer opened a location in Zweibrucken, Germany between the Canadian and the American Air Force bases. As Diego's agent for seven years, she with assistance of Jawdat Naffouj who became her husband, opened Naffouj Gallery in Landstuhl which Jawdat still runs today. The Naffouj's introduced the iconic Diego signature which dominated Diego works for the next two decades. They turned art buyers into devoted Diego collectors throughout Germany, USA and Canada; they also published eight Diego lithographs. In 1972, Lillian Dussard who worked for Naffouj Gallery, became Diego's agent to the Department of Defense locations until she went to US and opened her own gallery in Stafford, Virginia. In 1974 Christine Kahn took over the agent responsibilities for Diego for the next decade. All 3 women worked closely with Helga. Christine and Helga's friendship continues into present time.
Diego ceased working with Schlossgalerie when Helga and Diego moved in 1965 to Wiesbaden, Germany. Diego continued to take trips to Italy where he received a commission from Alfa Romeo in 1966. He also made a connection with the luxurious Galerie Dahms located on the prestigious Wilhelmstrasse of Wiesbaden that would last for many years.
Owner Siegfred Dahms wrote,
NOTE: A very large Diego painting is known to have been sold in 1978 by Herr Dahms for DM 15,000.
In 1965, Diego leased an apartment for five years in Wiesbaden. Diego also made a 5-year agreement with Naffouj Gallery in Landstuhl for so many paintings for so much per month. Joy Naffouj said, "To watch Diego paint is magical. His hand moves so fast it is blurred to the eye."
Helga wrote:
After five years, in 1970, recognizing Diego's significant talent, Jawdat Naffouj wanted assurance for future Diego artwork so a written guarantee contract went into effect signed, "Antonio Diego", this is the only evidence of the name Diego in a document signature from birth until 1976 when he registered in Taunusstein. In March 1970, to prepare for a one-man exhibit in Ravenna, Italy at Galleria Cairoli in October, Diego and Helga rented a villa enjoying the Italian lifestyle along the Adrian Sea in Riccione, while still mailing paintings to Naffouj Gallery.
After the exhibit, Diego and Helga headed to Bavaria, Germany to assist Helga's parents with the interior design of their newly constructed home where art by Diego remains today; sculpted fireplace and sculpted copper front door. They stayed and rented an apartment from late 1970 until mid-1972. In 1971, the University of Wisconsin received two Diego paintings from the Norman Marohn collection for the Polk Library. In 1972, Schwetzingen, Germany became their home. There Diego and Helga had a daughter, Alessandra, cared for by a nanny from India who stayed with them until 1985. Diego ended his guarantee-of-exclusivity contract with Naffouj Gallery in 1972 and continue travelling exhibitions with Lillian Dussard assisting. A sales relationship continued with Naffouj until 1979 and with Galerie Dahms until 1985.
Exhibitions in the US
Diego and Helga's first trip to the US was in 1973. Diego was asked to come to Colorado for an exhibition by Dr. Ogden Brown, an avid Diego collector that he met in Germany.
The Voci's, who had no knowledge of credit cards, bought a used station-wagon with cash on the east coast to travel cross country.
A solo show of Diego's work was successfully presented in November 1973, by Dr. Brown's daughter Marsha Largent at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.
The travels throughout the US expanded Diego's versatility in compositions. Diego was deeply moved by the Native American Indian in New Mexico which he translated to drawings and canvases.
In the news
In 1973/4 the introduction of writer, Victoria Williams, and John Krueger, a writer for Stars & Stripes newspaper through Diego collector Coop Cooprider, widened Diego's audience.
This included a live AFN TV interview on Women's World (while Diego was creating sketches), a published article in AFNTV guide, an 8-page glossy catalog capturing some of the Diego's masterworks, advertisements in Art News and an article by Walter Trott in Stars and Stripes. Although Coop's volunteer working relationship ended in mid-1974, he and wife Patti continued to add to their Diego collection and kept in contact for several years later.
The final decade
The last 10 years of Diego's life, his representation grew widespread from Galerie Dahms in Wiesbaden, Naffouj Gallery in Landstuhl, to Talbert's Gallery, Washington, US, and Glen Burnie Gallery, Maryland, US. In addition, in Canada exhibitions for Diego in 1981 were held at Goldcrest Galleries, Toronto; Stephen Max, Alberta; and the Van Zoolingen Gallery in Edmonton. And others such as, Salon Panetta in Manheim, Germany, with Gallerist Fausto Panetta (Rome region native), where over 20 Diegos sold in one exhibition.
As Diego's acclaim grew, he ventured into publishing another series of prints handmade on special lithostones in Urbino Italy in 1979, financed by Naffouj Gallery.
In the last 10 years the faces by Diego became less rugged, more refined and elongated. What never changed in Diego's art was his trust in human character. In painting after painting the presence of the human face and figure revealed Diego's vision of the world.
During a second visit to the United States in 1980 accompanied by their daughter Alessandra, Diego and Helga visited with his brother, Vincenzo in Philadelphia. Travels included New York and then headed west stopping in Tacoma, Washington where Diego had an exhibit at Talbert's Kleine Gallery, and Inga Fine Arts in addition to Good Years Gallery in Seattle. Their travels brought them to San Francisco, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs and New Orleans visiting American friends they had met in Germany and held private exhibits along the way.
During their last trip to the US in 1984, travels included a family visit in Philadelphia, a drive back to Albuquerque refreshing Diego's fascination of American Indians, and Colorado Springs to visit with devoted Diego art collectors. Diego did no exhibits during this trip. A holiday was taken in August 1985 to Menorca, Spain. In fall of 1985 Diego experienced health issues. Then on the trip to Paris with Tony (Diego's Nephew) and Lois Voci, Diego mainly stayed in the hotel room resting.
Diego's last hours
That persistent urge to draw that possessed Diego from a young child carried into Diego's last hours. The second weekend of December there was an open house in Diego's home and studio; he was too weak to attend. Yet he found the strength to draw one more piece for a door prize, his last work of art for the public, a cubist, ink drawing; followed by a small pencil sketch for Helga.
Diego, who smoked 40 cigarettes a day, succumbed to lung cancer 10 December 1985.
The resting place for Diego Voci is in Neuhof, Germany. On Helga's periodic visits she shares her thoughts with both Diego and her mother beside him.
Rediscovering lost art of Antonio Diego Voci
The mystery is what happened to all of Diego's early artwork?
With his vagabond nature, Diego was notoriously a poor record keeper. Although early examples of Diego Voci artwork are out there somewhere, Diego's first sale at age 18, and all works until 1957 remain totally undiscovered. Search for physical evidence of his art continues. Until 1965, the signatures are all likely a form of "Voci", not "Diego" as mostly on works after 1965. (See comments on the signatures of Antonio Diego Voci in a following section.)
Problem of hoarding
Diego's death was followed by a twenty-five-year vacuum of information. An Internet search made by a seeker of anything about Diego Voci would come up empty. Diego was mostly unknown in the broader art world beyond his dedicated band of devoted collectors who each bought several pieces and basically "hoarded" his work. Puzzled, an owner of 5 Diego pieces, Mary Trimmins in 2008 posted a simple question on ArtifactCollectors.com, "Are there any Diego painting owners out there?" Little by little Diego owners discovered Trimmins post.
About 50 collectors responded owning collectively over 400 Diego art pieces. The significant common denominator was that collectors bought, kept and treasured all their Diegos' for 35 to 45 years, displaying them and enjoying them. Result Diego's art did not appear on the market. But, time is ruthless. Diego collectors are in their senior years and many no longer grace this earth. The result is smatterings of Diego's art have been appearing in various countries on the market in Germany, Switzerland, USA and Canada.
Search on Internet sites established
In 2009, inspired by the positive response of Diego collectors' to Trimmins question, Diego's grand nephew Christopher Voci in Philadelphia created www.diegovociproject.com with a mission to "Rediscover Lost Art of Antonio Diego Voci". A Diego collector in California also volunteered to assist in the search for lost Diego artwork establishing sites on Facebook (Diego Voci), Twitter (@DiegoVoci). Also on Artifact Collectors, (to supplement the Trimmin's thread) "Diego Voci History" and "Diego Voci Painting of the Week".
After a quarter century vacuum of information the collaborative internet search for the thousands of undiscovered works by Diego Voci is gradually yielding collectors in various countries. Fifteen of the more avid collectors identified each had a dozen or more works by Diego. One self-confessed Diego "hoarder" referred to his "addiction" for collecting Diego's artwork as the "Potato Chip Phenomenon", you can't stop at only one. Siegfred Dahms, Wiesbaden art dealer expressed a similar experience.
Switzerland: two works discovered
The earliest physical evidence found to date of a purchase of Diego art work is two larger beautifully rendered paintings sold by the Schlossgalarie, in Zurich, Switzerland. Owner R. Buri considered these two paintings to be "Antonio Voci" masterworks. His wealthy clients often sought exceptional horse paintings. The 1962/3 "Horses Racing", was described by Mr. Buri as a "Voci masterpiece with hints of a fine Edgar Degas."
Just as Diego travelled the world, so too did his art. "Horses Racing" went to auction in Paris where it was purchased by an antique dealer from Basel. It was then purchased by a Czech born grand-dame as a wedding gift to her new son-in-law, who came from a family of race horse breeders in India. When contacted about his Diego in London where he resides, the son-in-law declared, "You call it a Diego, I consider it a Voci". And it is signed "A. Voci". Schlossgalerie advertised the artist under the name "Antonio Voci" (No "Diego").
Also signed "A. Voci" is another significant Diego piece "Alt und Yung" pictured in the Schlossgalerie advertisement of the Neue Zurcher Zeitung 20 January 1965. This painting also travelled, purchased in Zurich and ending in US, 43 years later.
A colour image of Diego's "Alt und Yung" painting can also be seen in a 2008 rare internet recorded sale on LiveAuctioneers.com. Kodner Auctions mis-titled the painting "Horses Grazing". In the absence of information about the artist, the painting was sold for a fraction of its original selling price. Later, a Diego collector offered to triple the price (or more), but requests to Kodner to reveal the present whereabouts were rejected.
Innocenzo v. Diego
"Diego" as he wanted the world to know him, rejected his birth middle name "Innocenzo". Being the youngest of three boys by fifteen years, that sweet little newborn was the picture of innocence (Italian: innocenza). Diego wanted to be seen as anything but innocent. The family pet childhood name "Toto" was enough to bear. "Diego told me he never liked his middle name," said Helga Drössler Voci, wife. "Innocenzo" is conspicuous by its official document absence in Diego's life. Innocenzo was discovered only on his birth certificate. After that it is "Antonio Voci" until 1976 when "Diego" is slipped into a government document.
Gallery
Works
Faces
Surrealism
Cubism
Clowns, Harlequins, and Musicians
Landscapes
Horses/Boats
Signatures
References
External links
Scanned Documents
Diego Voci Website
Diego Voci History at Artifact Collectors
Diego Voci at Artifact Collectors Main Thread DV-ADV
Diego Voci Artifact Collectors Painting of the Week
1920 births
1985 deaths
Impressionism
Fauvism
20th-century Italian painters
20th-century male artists
Italian male painters
Modern painters
Italian expatriates in France
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System of a Down (also known as SoaD or simply System) is an Armenian-American heavy metal band formed in Glendale, California, in 1994. It currently consists of members Serj Tankian (lead vocals, keyboards), Daron Malakian (guitar, vocals), Shavo Odadjian (bass, backing vocals), and John Dolmayan (drums), who replaced original drummer Andy Khachaturian in 1997.
The band achieved commercial success with the release of five studio albums, three of which debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. System of a Down has been nominated for four Grammy Awards and their song "B.Y.O.B." won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 2006. The band went on hiatus in 2006 and reunited in 2010. Other than two new songs in 2020 ("Protect the Land" and "Genocidal Humanoidz"), System of a Down has not released a full-length record since the Mezmerize and Hypnotize albums in 2005. The band has sold over 40 million records worldwide, while two of their singles "Aerials" and "Hypnotize" reached number one on Billboards Alternative Songs chart.
All members of System of a Down are of Armenian descent, being born to Armenian immigrants or immigrating from Armenia themselves.
History
Soil (1992–1994)
Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian attended Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School as children, although due to their eight-year age difference they did not meet until 1992 while working on separate projects at the same recording studio. They formed a band named Soil with Tankian on vocals and keyboards, Malakian on vocals and guitar, Dave Hakopyan (who later played in The Apex Theory/Mt. Helium) on bass and Domingo "Dingo" Laranio on drums. The band hired Shavo Odadjian (another Rose and Alex Pilibos alumnus) as manager, although he eventually joined Soil as a bassist. In 1994, after only one live show at the Roxy and one jam session recording, Hakopyan and Laranio left the band.
Demo tapes and signing (1994–1997)
After Soil split up, Tankian, Odadjian, and Malakian formed a new band, System of a Down. The group took its name from a poem that Malakian had written titled "Victims of a Down". The word "victims" was changed to "system" because Odadjian believed that it would appeal to a much wider audience and also because the group wanted their records to be alphabetically shelved closer to their musical heroes, Slayer. Odadjian switched from guitar to bass and passed on his managerial duties to Velvet Hammer Music and Management Group and its founder David "Beno" Benveniste. The band recruited drummer Ontronik "Andy" Khachaturian, an old school friend of Malakian and Odadjian who had played with Malakian in a band called Snowblind during their teens.
In early 1995, System of a Down performed under the name Soil at the Cafe Club Fais Do-Do, a nightclub in Los Angeles. Shortly after the event, System of a Down made what is known as Untitled 1995 Demo Tape, which was not commercially released but appeared on file sharing networks around the time of the band's success with Toxicity about six years later. Demo Tape 2 was released in 1996. At the beginning of 1997, System of a Down recorded their final publicly released demo tape, Demo Tape 3. In mid-1997, drummer Khachaturian left the band because of a hand injury (he subsequently co-founded The Apex Theory, which included former Soil bassist Dave Hakopyan). Khachaturian was replaced by John Dolmayan.
The band's first official and professionally recorded song was on a collection called Hye Enk ("we're Armenian" in English), an Armenian genocide recognition compilation in 1997. After playing at notable Hollywood clubs such as the Whisky-A-Go-Go and Viper Room, the band attracted the attention of producer Rick Rubin, who asked them to keep in touch. Showing great interest, the group recorded Demo Tape 4 near the end of 1997, specifically to be sent to record companies. Rubin signed the group to his American/Columbia Records and, with engineer Sylvia Massy, System began laying down tracks that would eventually be released on their debut album. "I loved them," Rubin recalled. "They were my favourite band, but I didn't think anyone was going to like them apart from a small, likeminded group of people like me who were crazy. No one was waiting for an Armenian heavy metal band. It had to be so good that it transcended all of that."
In 1997, the group won the Best Signed Band Award from the Rock City Awards.
Self-titled album (1998–2000)
In June 1998, System of a Down released their debut album, System of a Down. They enjoyed moderate success as their first singles "Sugar" and "Spiders" became radio favorites and the music videos for both songs were frequently aired on MTV. After the release of the album, the band toured extensively, opening for Slayer and Metallica before making their way to the second stage of Ozzfest. Following Ozzfest, they toured with Fear Factory and Incubus before headlining the Sno-Core Tour with Puya, Mr. Bungle, The Cat and Incubus providing support.
In November 1998, System of a Down appeared on South Park's Chef Aid album, providing the music for the song "Will They Die 4 You?" Near the end of the song Tankian can be heard saying, "Why must we kill our own kind?", a line that would later be used in the song "Boom!" Although System of a Down is credited on the album, South Park character Chef does not introduce them as he does most of the other artists featured on the record.
Toxicity and Steal This Album! (2001–2003)
On September 3, 2001, System of a Down had planned on launching their second album at a free concert in Hollywood as a "thank you" to fans. The concert, which was to be held in a parking lot, was set up to accommodate 3,500 people; however, an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 fans showed up. Because of the large excess number of fans, the performance was cancelled by fire marshals just before the group took the stage. No announcement was made that the concert had been cancelled. Fans waited for more than an hour for the group to appear, but when a banner hanging at the back of the stage that read "System of a Down" was removed by security, the audience rushed the stage, destroying all the band's touring gear (approximately $30,000 worth of equipment) and began to riot, throwing rocks at police, breaking windows, and knocking over portable toilets. The riot lasted six hours, during which six arrests were made. The band's manager, David "Beno" Benveniste, later said that the riot could have been avoided if the group had been permitted to perform or had they been allowed to make a statement at the concert regarding the cancellation. System of a Down's scheduled in-store performance the next day was cancelled to prevent a similar riot.
The group's big break arrived when their second album, Toxicity, debuted at No. 1 on the American and Canadian charts. The album has eventually achieved 3x multi-platinum certification in the United States It was still on top in America during the week of the 9/11 attacks and the political environment caused by the attacks added to the controversy surrounding the album's hit single "Chop Suey!" The song was taken off the radio as it contained politically sensitive lyrics according to the 2001 Clear Channel memorandum at the time such as "(I don't think you) trust in my self-righteous suicide." Regardless, the video gained constant play on MTV as did the album's second single, "Toxicity". Even with the controversy surrounding "Chop Suey!" (which earned a Grammy nomination), System of a Down still received constant airplay in the United States throughout late 2001 and 2002 with "Toxicity" and "Aerials". In May 2006, VH1 listed "Toxicity" in the number 14 slot in the 40 Greatest Metal Songs.
In 2001, the band went on tour with Slipknot throughout the United States and Mexico. Following a performance in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Odadjian was allegedly harassed, ethnically intimidated, and was physically assaulted by security guards backstage, who then dragged him out of the venue. Odadjian received medical attention from police and later filed a suit against the security company. Despite the incident, the tour was a success and System of a Down and Slipknot went on the Pledge of Allegiance Tour together with Rammstein in 2001.
In late 2001, unreleased tracks from the Toxicity sessions made their way onto the internet. This collection of tracks was dubbed Toxicity II by fans. The group released a statement that the tracks were unfinished material and subsequently released the final versions of the songs as their third album, Steal This Album!, which was released in November 2002. Steal This Album! resembled a burnable CD that was marked with a felt-tip marker. About 50,000 special copies of the album with different CD designs were also released, each designed by a different member of the band. The name of the album is a reference to Abbie Hoffman's counter-culture book, Steal This Book as well as a message to those who leaked the songs onto the internet. The song "Innervision" was released as a promo single and received constant airplay on alternative radio. A video for "Boom!" was filmed with director Michael Moore as a protest against the War in Iraq.
Mezmerize, Hypnotize, and hiatus (2004–2006)
Between 2004 and 2005, the group recorded the follow-up to Steal This Album!, a double album, which they released as separate installments six months apart. The releases notably included album cover artwork by Malakian's father, Vartan Malakian, and were designed to connect the two separate album covers. The first album, Mezmerize, was released on May 17, 2005 to favorable reviews by critics. It debuted at No. 1 in the United States, Canada, Australia and all around the world, making it System of A Down's second No. 1 album. First week sales exceeded 800,000 copies worldwide. The lead single "B.Y.O.B.", which questions the integrity of military recruiting in America, worked its way up the Billboard Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts, and would go on to win the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. " Question!" was released as the next single, with Shavo Odadjian co-directing the music video. Following the album's release, the band toured extensively throughout the United States and Canada with The Mars Volta and Bad Acid Trip supporting.
The second part of the double album, Hypnotize, was released on November 22, 2005. Like Mezmerize it debuted at No. 1 in the US, making System of a Down, along with The Beatles, rappers 2Pac and DMX, the only artists to ever have two studio albums debut at No. 1 in the same year. "Hypnotize" was released as the lead single and was followed by Lonely Day and Vicinity of Obscenity, all three of which were also released as EPs, including several previously-unreleased cover songs as well as a collaboration with the Wu-Tang Clan. Kill Rock 'N Roll was released as the final promotional single.
Whereas on System of a Down's previous albums most of the lyrics were written and sung by Tankian and the music was co-written by Tankian and Malakian (and sometimes Odadjian), much of the music and lyrics on Mezmerize/Hypnotize were written by Malakian, who also took on a much more dominant role as vocalist on both albums, often leaving Tankian providing keyboards and backing vocals.
System of a Down's song "Lonely Day" was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance in the 49th Grammy Awards in 2007 but lost to "Woman" by Wolfmother.
In May 2006 saw the UK publication of a biography of the band entitled System of a Down: Right Here in Hollywood by writer Ben Myers. It was published in the US in 2007 through The Disinformation Company. Additionally in 2006, concert footage and interviews with the band concerning the importance of helping create awareness and recognition of the Armenian genocide were featured in the film Screamers, directed by Carla Garapedian. An interview with Tankian's grandfather, a survivor of the Genocide, was also included in the film as well as Tankian's and Dolmayan's meeting with (then) Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert during which the two musicians campaigned for the United States government's official recognition of the Genocide. Footage of Tankian and Dolmayan marching with protesters outside the Turkish embassy in Washington D.C. was also used in Screamers.
In May as well, the band announced they were going on hiatus. Malakian confirmed the break would probably last a few years, which Odadjian specified as a minimum of three years in an interview with Guitar magazine. He told MTV, "We're not breaking up. If that was the case, we wouldn't be doing this Ozzfest. We're going to take a very long break after Ozzfest and do our own things. We've done System for over ten years, and I think it's healthy to take some rest." System of a Down's final performance before their separation took place on August 13, 2006 in West Palm Beach, Florida. "Tonight will be the last show we play for a long time together," Malakian told the crowd during Sunday's last performance. "We'll be back. We just don't know when."
During the band's hiatus, Malakian formed a band called Scars on Broadway, which was joined by Dolmayan. After one self-titled album, the project became dormant and Dolmayan left the band. However, the band released their long-awaited sophomore album in 2018, titled "Dictator," under the name Daron Malakian and Scars On Broadway. Dolmayan, alongside working with Scars on Broadway, formed his own band, Indicator. Dolmayan also released an album titled "These Grey Men." in 2020. The majority of the songs are covers/reimaginings of other songs by artists such as Radiohead, AFI, Madonna and Talking Heads. A few of the songs included featured Serj Tankian as a voice lead. Dolmayan has also opened Torpedo Comics, an online comic book store. Odadjian pursued his project with RZA of Wu-Tang Clan, a hip-hop group named AcHoZeN, worked on his urSESSION website/record label and performed as a member of funk legend George Clinton's backing band. Meanwhile, Tankian opted for a solo career and released his debut solo album Elect the Dead in the autumn of 2007. He has continued releasing solo albums, recording them almost entirely by himself even after System of a Down had begun to reunite for tours.
Reunion and touring (2010–2020)
On November 29, 2010, following several weeks of Internet rumors, System of a Down officially announced that they would be reuniting for a string of large European festival dates in June 2011. Among the announced tour dates included UK's Download Festival, Switzerland's Greenfield Festival, Germany's Rock am Ring/Rock im Park, Sweden's Metaltown, Austria's Nova Rock Festival and Finland's Provinssirock. The reunion tour commenced on May 10, 2011 in Edmonton, Alberta. System's first tour through Mexico and South America began on September 28, 2011 in Mexico City, ending in Santiago, Chile on October 7, 2011. From late February to early March 2012, they headlined five dates at Soundwave festival. This was the band's first visit to Australia since 2005. The band have continued playing around the world. On August 11 and 12, 2012, they played the Heavy MTL and Heavy T.O. music festivals in Montreal and Toronto respectively. In August 2013 System of a Down played at the UK's Reading and Leeds Festivals, among other festivals and venues that year.
System of a Down played their only 2013 US performance at the Hollywood Bowl on July 29; tickets sold out hours after going on sale on March 22. On November 23, 2014, System of a Down announced the Wake Up The Souls Tour to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. The tour included a free concert in Republic Square in Yerevan, Armenia on April 23, 2015, their first show in the country.
In a November 2016 interview with Kerrang!, drummer John Dolmayan revealed that System of a Down was working on more than a dozen songs for their follow-up to the Mezmerize and Hypnotize albums. Although he stated that the band does not know when the album will be released, he added that, "I want everyone on board and feeling good about it. That's what we're trying to accomplish right now. There's a tremendous amount of pressure on us, though, because it's been 11 years—at least 12 by the time it comes out."
In a video Q&A session with fans on July 2, 2017, Shavo Odadjian was asked about the status of the next album and he responded, "I'm waiting for a new album too. It's not happening. I don't know. I don't know when it's gonna be. Not right now." In a December 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, Serj Tankian said that System of a Down wrote some new material but was uncertain of what to do with it. He then said that he doesn't want to commit to a new album due to the lack of committing to longform touring.
Malakian singled Tankian out as the reason no new album had yet been released. Tankian detailed his view of the band's past and present conflicts and their overall situation, saying "As we couldn’t see eye to eye on all these points we decided to put aside the idea of a record altogether for the time being." Dolmayan blamed all of the members due to the personal and creative differences that have been preventing them from recording a new studio album. Tankian also expressed uncertainty on whether the new album would be made or not but did not rule out the possibility. He went on to describe how he imagined the album sounding, "It's gotta be organic, it's gotta feel right in every way."
Odadjian said that the band has material written from "like the last 10, 12 years", but is uncertain on if it would form into a System of a Down album or not. He also said that Malakian and Tankian have visual differences on what the album should sound like, and that the band's inner tension had been building far longer than fans would be aware of despite having love and respect for one another nonetheless. He would later say that there is no conflict between the members, expressing confidence that System of a Down would eventually record a new album and claimed that they have material written that would be their best to date. However, Tankian contradicts this statement by stating that there was no talk of the band recording a new album.
Malakian explained that there is a mixture between the matter of different creative perspectives for the band's hesitation to record a new studio album and the lack of desire to tour; however he did not dismiss the possibility of an album being made, but that it would likely not happen anytime soon. He feels that the fans don't care that the band isn't making an album, "but I think a lot of the fans just want an album." He expressed hopes that the members would get together and record new music but is content with the direction of his band Scars on Broadway, noting about the members' good friendship, "But at the same time, I don't see that happening anytime soon that we're all going to get together and make a new System of a Down album." Malakian said that Tankian and the rest of the band members have been unable to come to an agreement over how to go about making new music, but insists that there is no negativity between them.
Despite System of a Down's ability to perform live, Odadjian expressed disappointment at their inability to record new music, explaining that there has been new material written by the other members in the form of a possible new album. However, without Tankian's presence, no recordings had been made. He questioned why the band still hasn't made an album, citing creative differences as the problem. With the lack of commitment to record new music, Tankian however, is in favor of releasing a collection of previously unreleased System of a Down songs from the band's past album sessions but would have to convince all the members in order to see its release.
With the differences concerning the band members, Dolmayan became uncertain in wanting to make new music anymore. Although he did not want to put Tankian and Malakian at fault for the band's inability to record a new album, he said, "It takes four people to make this band, and it takes four people to unmake it. I think that we're all to blame. I could just blame Daron and Serj, because, quite frankly, they're the primary songwriters, so it's easy to blame them. But it's not just their fault. A lot of it is their fault, but it's not just their fault." In an interview Dolmayan exclaimed that putting the band on hiatus was a grave mistake, "I never wanted System to take a hiatus. I think it was a disastrous move for us because we never reached our peak." Dolmayan believed that the band could have risen through the charts if they had just kept going. On December 17, 2020 Serj Tankian announced in a Rolling Stone interview that he would release an EP by the name of, "Elasticity" under his own name. Tankian had planned to release the EP in October, however due to COVID-19, changed plans in order to release it in February 2021. In the interview, he explains that the EP contains songs he’d written for System of a Down that the band ultimately opted not to record.
Artsakh benefit singles and possible sixth studio album (2020–present)
On November 5, 2020, in response to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, System of a Down released their first songs in 15 years, "Protect the Land" and "Genocidal Humanoidz", both of which "speak of a dire and serious war being perpetrated upon our cultural homelands of Artsakh and Armenia." "Protect the Land" also received a music video and marked the band's first single in 14 years, since "Lonely Day". Proceeds from the songs were to help Armenia Fund and for humanitarian needs of displaced families from the war.
As for a possible new album, Dolmayan told Rolling Stone, "If it was up to me, we'd have a new album every three years. But things aren't up to me. I'm at the mercy of my team, and although I fought for it for many years with band members, I've accepted that it is what it is. We do have five albums and [now] two songs. We've accomplished a lot in our careers. If it ends at that, so be it." In the same interview, Malakian claimed that "Protect the Land" and "Genocidal Humanoidz" were originally going to be released under his own band Scars on Broadway. However, as the conflict came to fruition, the band had decided to come together and release the songs under System of a Down instead. Malakian also said he does not see the band making new music anytime soon, saying that the singles were a "one-off kind of thing". Shavo Odadjian spoke with Wall of Sound in a follow up interview discussing the conception of the songs, stating, "It was amazing... Even though we have had our differences, when we’re in there it’s just like brothers making music together, like it all started." When asked if the two songs had inspired a new era of creativity for System of a Down, Tankian said to Triple J in December 2020, "I don't know, because right now we're focused on what's going on in Armenia. There's a huge humanitarian catastrophe. We're still focused on raising funds, raising awareness about this. Time will tell whether this leads to something else or not."
Artistry
Lyrical themes
System of a Down's lyrics are often oblique or dadaist and have discussed topics such as drug abuse, politics and suicide. "Prison Song" criticizes the War on Drugs whereas Rolling Stone describes "Roulette" as a "scared, wounded love letter". "Boom!", among the band's most straightforward and unambiguous songs, lambasts globalization and spending on bombs and armament. Commenting on the track "I-E-A-I-A-I-O", drummer John Dolmayan said it was inspired by an encounter he had with Knight Rider's actor David Hasselhoff in a liquor store in Los Angeles when he was around 12. On Mezmerize, "Cigaro" makes explicit references to phallic imagery and bureaucracy while "Violent Pornography" harshly views television and degradation of women. System of a Down's discontent towards the controversial Iraq War arises in "B.Y.O.B.", which is a double entendre reference to beer and bombs, containing the forthright lyric "Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?", paraphrasing Black Sabbath's War Pigs, "Old School Hollywood" describes a celebrity baseball game. On their album "Hypnotize", "Tentative" describes war, "Hypnotize" refers to the Tiananmen Square events, and "Lonely Day" describes angst. The album title Steal This Album! is a play on the book Steal This Book by left-wing political activist Abbie Hoffman. System of a Down's firm commitment for the recognition of the Armenian genocide emerges in two songs: "P.L.U.C.K." and "Holy Mountains", which rank among the band's most political songs.
Music
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic stated "Like many late-'90s metal bands System of a Down struck a balance between '80s underground thrash metal and metallic early-'90s alternative rockers like Jane's Addiction". System of a Down's music has variously been termed alternative metal, nu metal, heavy metal, hard rock, progressive metal, thrash metal, art rock, and avant-garde metal.
Malakian has stated that "We don't belong to any one scene" and that "I don't like the nu-metal drop-A 7-string guitar sound; it is not my thing, at least not yet." In interview with Mike Lancaster, he also said, "People always seem to feel the need to put us into a category, but we just don't fit into any category." According to Tankian, "As far as arrangement and everything, [our music] is pretty much pop. To me, System of a Down isn't a progressive band. [...] But it's not a typical pop project, obviously. We definitely pay attention to the music to make sure that it's not something someone's heard before."
The band has used a wide range of instruments, such as electric mandolins, baritone electric guitars, acoustic guitars, ouds, sitars, and twelve string guitars. According to Malakian, he would often write songs in E♭ tuning, which would later be changed to drop C tuning in order to be performed by the band. Malakian states that "For me, the drop-C tuning is right down the center. It has enough of the clarity and the crisp sound—most of our riffy stuff is done on the top two strings, anyway—but it's also thicker and ballsier."
Influences and comparison to other artists
System of a Down's influences include Middle Eastern music, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Def Leppard, Scorpions, Morbid Angel, Death, Obituary, Eazy-E, N.W.A, Run-DMC, Umm Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, the Bee Gees, Grateful Dead, The Beatles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Dead Kennedys, Metallica, Miles Davis, Alice in Chains, Iron Maiden, Bad Brains, Slayer, and Kiss. One reviewer claimed that their music encompasses different sounds, from sounding like "Fugazi playing Rush" to sometimes "tread[ing] close to Frank Zappa territory." Malakian has stated that "I'm a fan of music. I'm not necessarily a fan of any one band." Dolmayan stated "I don't think we sound like anybody else. I consider us System of a Down." Odadjian stated "You can compare us to whoever you want. I don't care. Comparisons and labels have no effect on this band. Fact is fact: We are who we are and they are who they are."
Band members
Current members
Serj Tankian – lead vocals, keyboards, rhythm guitar (1994–present)
Daron Malakian – lead/rhythm guitar, co-lead vocals (1994–present)
Shavo Odadjian – bass, backing vocals (1994–present)
John Dolmayan – drums, percussion (1997–present)
Former members
Andy Khachaturian – drums (1994–1997)
Occasional contributors
Arto Tunçboyacıyan – percussion, composition (on Toxicity: "Science", "ATWA" and "Arto". Steal This Album!: "Bubbles". Some live concerts in 2005, 2013)
Timeline
Discography
System of a Down (1998)
Toxicity (2001)
Steal This Album! (2002)
Mezmerize (2005)
Hypnotize (2005)
Awards and nominations
References
External links
Musical groups disestablished in 2006
Musical groups reestablished in 2010
1994 establishments in California
American alternative metal musical groups
Armenian rock music groups
Columbia Records artists
Grammy Award winners
Kerrang! Awards winners
Musical groups established in 1994
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
Musicians from Glendale, California
Nu metal musical groups from California
American progressive metal musical groups
MTV Europe Music Award winners
Hard rock musical groups from California
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"Gone for Goode" is the first episode of the first season of the American police drama television series Homicide: Life on the Street. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on January 31, 1993, immediately following Super Bowl XXVII. The episode was written by series creator Paul Attanasio and directed by executive producer Barry Levinson. "Gone for Goode" introduced regular cast members Daniel Baldwin, Ned Beatty, Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, Wendy Hughes, Clark Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo, Jon Polito and Kyle Secor.
The episode connects several subplots involving the detectives of a Baltimore Police Department homicide unit and establishes story arcs that continued through the first season. Among them are an investigation by Meldrick Lewis (Johnson) and Steve Crosetti (Polito) into a widow killing husbands for insurance money, as well as rookie Tim Bayliss (Secor) being assigned the murder of an 11-year-old girl for his first case. Both of those subplots were taken directly from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, the 1991 David Simon non-fiction book from which the series was adapted.
"Gone for Goode" was seen by 18.24 million viewers, the largest viewership of the first season, although NBC was initially disappointed with the ratings. The episode received generally positive reviews upon its original broadcast. Barry Levinson won an Emmy Award for his direction in "Gone for Goode", and was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award. Paul Attanasio received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for the episode's script.
Plot summary
The episode opens with Lewis (Clark Johnson) and Crosetti (Jon Polito) looking for a projectile a few yards away from the body of a man shot to death. The man's girlfriend (Oni Faida Lampley), who was shot in the head during the incident but survived, tells police during questioning that her aunt Calpurnia Church hired a hitman to kill her for insurance money. The detectives learn Church previously collected life insurance from five deceased husbands. Suspecting Church of murdering her husbands, Lewis and Crosetti have the body of her most recent husband exhumed for an autopsy, but reach a dead-end when it turns out to be the wrong body in his grave.
Felton (Daniel Baldwin) hesitates to take a new murder case because he fears it will be too difficult to solve, so it is taken on by his partner Howard (Melissa Leo), who has recently experienced a perfect streak of solving 11 consecutive cases. They investigate the body of a man dead in a basement, and much to Felton's bewilderment, Howard solves the case easily. The owner of the house, Jerry Jempson (Jim Grollman), literally calls her at the house while she is investigating and agrees to a police interview, during which he acts extremely nervous and is eventually charged with the murder.
Munch (Richard Belzer) is reluctant to follow up on the case of murdered drug addict Jenny Goode, who was run over by a car. The case has been cold for three months, but he is made to feel guilty by his partner Bolander (Ned Beatty) into reexamining it. Munch makes no progress after speaking with the family and reexamining notes. Based on witness accounts of a man with long blond hair and a black car, Munch spends all night looking through suspect photos until he finds a man with a black car with front end damage and long black hair, but blond eyebrows. Munch and Bolander question him, believing the suspect (Joe Hansard) to have dyed his hair to change his appearance after killing the woman. He quickly confesses to having hit her accidentally while driving drunk.
Gee (Yaphet Kotto) tells Pembleton (Andre Braugher), an excellent detective but a lone wolf, that he must work with a partner. Pembleton ends up investigating the death of a 65-year-old man with rookie detective Bayliss (Kyle Secor). Bayliss initially believes the death to be a heart attack, but Pembleton correctly determines it is a murder because the man's car is missing. Police later arrest a man named Johnny (Alexander Chaplin) who is found driving the dead man's car. During an interrogation, Pembleton fools Johnny into waiving his Miranda Rights, then sneakily persuades him into confessing to the murder. Bayliss, although convinced of Johnny's guilt, nevertheless questions the ethics of Pembleton's approach, prompting Pembleton to yell angrily at him in front of the other officers. The episode ends with Bayliss responding to his first homicide as the primary detective: the brutal murder of an 11-year-old girl named Adena Watson.
Production
Development and writing
"Gone for Goode" was written by series creator Paul Attanasio and directed by executive producer Barry Levinson. Levinson was seeking to create a television series based on Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, a 1991 non-fiction book by David Simon based on one year he spent with Baltimore Police Department homicide detectives. Levinson and fellow executive producer Tom Fontana hired Attanasio to adapt elements of the book into the teleplay for the first episode. It was first television script Attanasio ever wrote. The episode was shot by director of photography Wayne Ewing. Stan Warnow started out working as editor, but departed before the process was done due to creative differences with Levinson. Tony Black finished the editing for "Gone for Goode", but did not return for the rest of the season, and Jay Rabinowitz worked as editor for the remaining episodes. The costumes for the episode were designed by Van Smith, but he also did not return to work on subsequent episodes. Although it was first episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, it was not technically a television pilot because the network had already ordered a full season of episodes before "Gone for Goode" was produced. The first episode was noted at the time for weaving four separate storylines into a single episode, the first in a trend of multiple subplots in each Homicide show. NBC executives indicated to Attanasio and Levinson they would have preferred the script to focus on a single homicide case rather than four, but ultimately allowed the script to be filmed with all subplots included. Additionally, despite intense advance promotion of the Homicide premiere, Attanasio deliberately sought to introduce the show with little fanfare, avoiding sensational gimmicks in favor of character-driven plot, quirky dialogue and morbid dark humor.
"Gone for Goode" included several storylines, and even exact bits of dialogue, adapted straight from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Among them were the investigation into Calpurnia Smith, an elderly woman suspected of murdering five husbands in order to collect their life insurance policies. This was based on the real-life case of Geraldine Parrish, who was also accused of killing five husbands for insurance money, and was eventually convicted for three of their deaths. A scene involving a funeral director accidentally exhuming the wrong body while investigating the Church case mirrored a similar situation described in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets from the Parrish case. The Adena Watson murder case, which is assigned to Bayliss in the final scene of "Gone for Goode", was adapted from the unsolved 1988 slaying of Latonya Kim Wallace, which made up a major part of the book. The Watson case became an important story arc throughout the first season which ended without the case being solved. The hit-and-run murder of Jenny Goode was also based on Simon's book, and the murder of the elderly man was inspired by a case featured in the book in which a young homosexual man killed his elderly lover and stole his car.
Attanasio also based the characters in Homicide on the detectives featured in Simon's book. The difficulties Bayliss experienced with the case, as well as the extremely personal approach he took in attempting to solve it, were inspired by the real-life Baltimore detective Tom Pellegrini, who was the primary detective in the Wallace case. Most of the detectives featured in the Homicide book said they were happy with their on-screen counterparts, although Detective Harry Edgerton, the inspiration for Frank Pembleton, objected to a scene in "Gone for Goode" in which the character drinks milk in a bar, something Edgerton said he never does.
The episode opens with Crosetti and Lewis looking for clues in a dark alley. Levinson and Attanasio specifically wanted a dialogue-driven prologue scene that did not immediately clarify the fact that the two men were detectives or what they were looking for. The dialogue and staging of the scene were imitated in the final scene of the last Homicide episode, "Forgive Us Our Trespasses", which aired on May 21, 1999. In that final scene, Detective Rene Sheppard (played by Michael Michele) says to Lewis, "Life is a mystery, just accept it", a line spoken by Crosetti in the first episode. Lewis also said, "That's what's wrong with this job. It ain't got nothin' to do do with life", a line also spoken by Crosetti in the first episode. Early scenes in "Gone for Goode" also involved Giardello introducing rookie detective Bayliss to the homicide unit. Attanasio sought to use Bayliss' orientation as a way of introducing exposition and background about the show to the viewer as well.
In writing the script, Attanasio, Levinson and Fontana wanted the dialogue to reflect the kinds of things detectives would talk about when not discussing murders or cases, which led to the inclusion of several scenes in which detectives talk casually among themselves during lunch or around the office. Fontana, who compared the scenes to Levinson's 1982 film Diner, said, "That really made the show different from other shows, because we had the room to have conversations that seemingly didn't (storywise) connect anything, but they did reveal a lot about the characters." Levinson specifically asked that the body by Howard and Felton be badly decomposing and attracting flies because he felt other police dramas did not portray corpses in a realistic way.
Photography style
Levinson and Fontana sought to establish many of the stylistic elements in the episode which would define the series for its entire run. Among them were near-constant movement with hand-held Super 16 cameras to give the episode a naturalistic documentary look and an editing style involving jump cuts that was unusual for television at the time. Levinson said this camera and editing style was partially inspired by Breathless, the 1960 Jean-Luc Godard film. The scenes were shot on-location in Baltimore, as would be the case throughout the duration of the series. The use of hand-held cameras allowed the film to be shot more easily in the city, rather than on a sound-stage in Los Angeles or New York City, where most shows are typically shot. Levinson said being on location at all times allowed Baltimore "to be a character in the show".
While filming the episode, Levinson said he would simply allow the actors to perform while he switched back and forth between them with the hand-held camera instead of filming carefully planned shots and individual scenes from multiple angles. This camera style largely persisted through the end of the series in 1999. Some individual scenes involved a number of jump cuts repeated several times in fast succession. Another unusual stylistic element used in the episode involved sudden changes in jump-screen direction; a shot with an actor looking from left to right might immediately jump to another shot of the same actor looking from right to left. This process was born during the editing sessions for "Gone for Goode", where Levinson insisted that the footage be edited to include the actor's best performances. During editing, Tony Black cut together two shots that did not match and began looking for a cutaway shot he could use to disguise the edit. Levinson, however, liked the technique that came from cutting the two conflicting shots together and insisted it stay in.
In addition to stylistic touches, the episode established several narrative motifs that stayed with Homicide: Life on the Street throughout the duration of the series. Among them was the white board where detectives kept the names of their open cases in red and their closed cases in black. The names of NBC employees and friends of the Homicide crew were used on the white board. The episode was noted for its deliberate lack of gunplay and car chases in favor of dialogue and story. Levinson and Fontana also allowed humor to be incorporated into the show, particularly through the interactions between the detectives; Levinson said of the first episode, "We have to inform the audience, but at the same time you want to do it with a sense of humor so you don't seem too pretentious, in a way." Several long-standing character traits were established in "Gone for Goode", including Kay Howard's extraordinary streak of solved cases and the antagonism between Felton and Pembleton, which is demonstrated when the two argue loudly after being assigned to a case together. The animosity between Felton and Pembleton is based on the real-life Detective Donald Kincaid, who was the inspiration behind Felton, and the strong dislike Kincaid had for Harry Edgerton, as chronicled in Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Howard's perfect streak is based on a similar (although shorter) lucky streak experienced by the real-life Detective Rich Garvey, who is also featured in David Simon's book.
Filming
The episode was filmed over the course of seven days in Baltimore. The scene in which Pembleton and Felton try to find the correct police car in a large garage was filmed in a rundown early 20th-century ballroom. The scene features dozens of white unmarked Cavaliers. Shortly before "Gone for Goode" was filmed, the Baltimore Police Department stopped using Cavaliers as their regular brand of police car, and agreed to sell their collection of leftover Cavaliers to the Homicide show for $1. Although the cars were used as props in the episode, only two of the cars were actually drivable. The scenes set in the medical examiner's office were filmed in the actual Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore. The actors, particularly Jon Polito, hated performing in the morgue because they found the atmosphere unsettling. Ned Beatty said of filming there, "The one thing you can't get on camera is, oh boy, it smells." The identification pictures of suspects that Munch looks through were all pictures of photos of members of the Homicide crew. One of the final scenes in the episode, featuring Polito, Johnson and Belzer speaking in an alley at night, was conceived, written and shot in one night simply because it was raining outside, and the Homicide crew wanted to take advantage of the location during a rainy night.
Levinson said he considered the interrogation scene in "Gone for Goode" between Braugher, Secor and Chaplin, to be the "defining scene" for Frank Pembleton's character because it defined the character's intelligence, quirkiness, sharp instincts and sneaky interrogation style. While filming that scene, Levinson commented to Tom Fontana that the acting was so effective, an entire episode could be filmed revolving strictly around an interrogation. The comments partially inspired Fontana to write the first-season episode, "Three Men and Adena", which became one of the most critically acclaimed Homicide episodes. The final scene of the episode features Bayliss responding to the murder scene of Adena Watson in a rainy alleyway. The body was wrapped in a red raincoat, and Levinson worked with colorists to bleed out all the colors except that red to give the film a stark look. "Gone for Goode" originally included a scene with Gee and Bayliss discussing detective work at the police station. The scene, which was cut from the final episode, featured Gee comparing the work to challenges faced by literary character Sherlock Holmes, as well as Gee mistakenly referring to Holmes' antagonist Moriarty as "Murray".
"Gone for Goode" marks the first performance of Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch, a character the actor has played in more than 300 television episodes in a number of shows, including Homicide and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Levinson said Belzer was a "lousy actor" during his first audition with the "Gone for Goode" script. Levinson asked Belzer to take some time to reread and practice the material, then come back and read it again. During his second reading, Levinson said Belzer was "still terrible", but that the actor eventually found confidence in his performance. "Gone for Goode" included guest appearances by actors who later become much more widely known. Steve Harris, who later achieved fame playing Eugene Young on the ABC legal drama The Practice, played an uncooperative suspect who repeatedly lies to Munch during questioning. Alexander Chaplin, who later played speechwriter James Hobert on the ABC sitcom Spin City, portrayed the alleged murderer Johnny in "Gone for Goode". The comedic confession scenes involving Jim Grollman as accused murderer Jerry Jempson were almost entirely improvised.
The editing process for "Gone for Goode" proved difficult due to audio problems that forced producers to re-shoot several scenes. However, the cast and crew also found the atmosphere fun during editing, so much so that Barry Levinson's mother brought in home-baked snacks and the crew had to be asked to stop visiting because they were slowing down the edit sessions. When the cast finally watched the last cut of "Gone for Goode", they hugged each other in celebration.
Cultural references
Throughout the episode, Crosetti discusses with Lewis various conspiracy theories about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. Crosetti disputes the accepted theory that actor John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln and instead theorizes that Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, organized the murder. Crosetti's assassination theories about Lincoln would be a recurring theme throughout the rest of the first season. Crosetti's fascination with the Lincoln assassination was based on Tom Fontana's real-life obsession with it. During an early scene in which a suspect tries lying to Munch, the detective berates the suspect for treating him as if he were Montel Williams instead of Larry King. King is a long-time television journalist and host of CNN's Larry King Live, whereas Williams is a more tabloid-style television show host. Williams is also a Baltimore native, which becomes a point of discussion between Munch and Bolander. Munch tells a lying suspect that his false story has an "Elmore Leonard quality", a reference to an American novelist and screenwriter.
When Munch wonders how Romans become Italians, he asks when "Friends, Romans, countrymen; lend me your ears" turned into "Hey, yo!" The former line is from the William Shakespeare play Julius Caesar. Munch says, "Great, let's arrest Axl Rose", a Guns N' Roses musician, when he is told the suspect in a murder is blond. During one scene, the detectives eat steamed crabs. This was deliberately included in the episode to reflect the culinary culture of Baltimore, where eating crabs is extremely popular. During a discussion about Pembleton, Crosetti compares him to the lone wolf character played by actor Gary Cooper in the 1952 western film High Noon; when trying to recall the title of the film, Crosetti said the character had a New York City type of attitude, prompting Lewis to believe he is referring to the 1942 baseball film The Pride of the Yankees, also starring Cooper.
Reception
Original broadcast and ratings
"Gone for Goode" was scheduled to premiere on January 31, 1993, in the time slot immediately following Super Bowl XXVII. Having consistently placed third in the Nielsen ratings during prime time since September 1992, NBC hoped a large football audience coupled with an extensive advertising campaign would allow Homicide: Life on the Street to give the network a large ratings boost. The network ran numerous television commercials advertising the premiere episode, some of which focused on the involvement of Barry Levinson with the hope of capitalizing on the feature film director's household name.
"Gone for Goode" was seen by 18.24 million viewers. It earned an 18 rating, which represents the percentage of television-equipped homes, and a 31 share, which represents percentage of sets in use. This marked the best ratings performance of a preview or premiere following a Super Bowl since The Wonder Years in 1988. It was also the largest viewership of the first season, in large part due to its 10:25 p.m. time-slot immediately following the Super Bowl. Nevertheless, NBC considered it a disappointing performance, based on the amount of advertising and press coverage the episode received. The episode received less than half the audience that the Super Bowl itself did. Levinson later said the Super Bowl crowd might not have been perfectly suited to Homicide: Life on the Street. In particular, regarding the episode's complex story lines and distinctive visual style, he said, "I imagine anyone who has been drinking a lot at a Super Bowl party might have trouble following the show."
Reviews
The debut episode received generally positive reviews. Kinney Littlefield of The Orange County Register said, "One word about 'Gone for Goode' - wow." Littlefield praised the episode for dropping the viewer into the middle of an episode with complex characters and storylines without getting too confusing. People magazine reviewer David Hiltbrand called the episode "extraordinary" and gave it an A grade. He complimented the realism, the hand-held camera work and the cast, particularly Belzer. Lon Grahnke of the Chicago Sun-Times complimented the cast and praised the show for not depending on car chases or action sequences. Grahnke also said the show "has the spice, dry wit and ethnic diversity of the Hill Street Blues crew, with even more eccentricities and a heightened sense of realism". John Goff of Daily Variety said the episode was well filmed and edited, and included a strong cast with performances "above normal level of series work". Entertainment Weekly writer Bruce Fretts particularly praised Andre Braugher's performance: "It's not often you actually witness a TV star being born... The moment the galvanic actor steps onto the screen, though, he owns it." The New York Times television critic John J. O'Connor praised the performance of Jon Polito, and said the role could be "the kind of career break Joe Pesci found in the Lethal Weapon movies".
Mike Boone of The Gazette praised Belzer's performance and the hand-held camera style of photography, adding, "But if your picture tube blew Sunday night, you could still listen to an hour of the hippest, funniest dialogue on TV." Not all reviews were positive. Some critics considered the photography style of jump cuts and hand-held camera movement too jarring; some said it made them feel seasick. James Endrst, television columnist for The Hartford Courant, felt the episode was over-hyped and said "seen it, done it, been there before" of the filming techniques otherwise being praised as cutting edge. Endrst, however, praised the performances of Braugher, Belzer, Polito and Secor in particular. Time reviewer Richard Zoglin said the episode had a strong cast and that he appreciated the lack of two-dimensional violence, but said, "the characters are too pat, their conflicts too predictable", particularly the rookie character Bayliss.
"Gone for Goode" was identified by The Baltimore Sun as one of the ten best episodes of the series. Sun writer David Zurawik wrote: "'Gone for Goode' is not just a well-crafted pilot, it is one of the best in the history of the medium. It introduced a sprawling cast of complicated characters and made us want to come back and visit this world again." "Gone for Goode" was also among a 1999 Court TV marathon of the top 15 Homicide episodes, as voted on by 20,000 visitors to the channel's website.
Awards and nominations
Barry Levinson won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for his direction in "Gone for Goode". It was one of two Emmys Homicide: Life on the Streets received during the 45th Primetime Emmy Awards season, with Tom Fontana also winning an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for the episode "Three Men and Adena". Levinson was also nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Direction in a Drama Series for the episode, but lost to Gregory Hoblit for his direction of the pilot episode of the police drama NYPD Blue. Paul Attanasio was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for his "Gone for Goode" script. It competed in that same category with Fontana's Homicide script "Night of the Dead Living", which eventually won the award.
Home media
"Gone for Goode" and the rest of the first and second-season episodes were included in the four-DVD box-set "Homicide: Life on the Street: The Complete Seasons 1 & 2", which was released by A&E Home Video on May 27, 2003, for $69.95. The set included an audio commentary by Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana for the "Gone for Goode" episode, as well as a collection of the commercials that advertised the episode during the Super Bowl.
References
External links
1993 American television episodes
Homicide: Life on the Street (season 1) episodes
American television pilots
Super Bowl lead-out shows
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Hay Post Office is a heritage-listed post office at 120 Lachlan Street, Hay, Hay Shire, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by the Colonial Architect's Office under James Barnet, and built by E. Noble and Co. The property is owned by Australia Post. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 22 December 2000.
History
British occupation of the area
In 1829 Charles Sturt and his men passed along the Murrumbidgee River on horses and drays. During the late-1830s stock was regularly overlanded to South Australia via the Lower Murrumbidgee. At the same time stockholders were edging westward along the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, Billabong and Murray systems. By 1839 all of the river frontages in the vicinity of present-day Hay were occupied by squatters. By the mid-1850s pastoral runs in the western Riverina were well-established and prosperous. The nearby Victorian gold rush provided an expanding market for stock. The prime fattening country of the Riverina became a sort of holding centre, from where the Victorian market could be supplied as required.
The locality where Hay township developed was originally known as Lang's Crossing-place (named after three brothers named Lang who were leaseholders of runs on the southern side of the river). It was the crossing on the Murrumbidgee River of a well-travelled stock-route (known as 'the Great North Road') leading to the markets of Victoria. In 1856-7 Captain Francis Cadell, pioneer of steam-navigation on the Murray River, placed a manager at Lang's Crossing-place with the task of establishing a store (initially in a tent). In August 1858 steamers owned by rival owners, Francis Cadell and William Randell, successfully travelled up the Murrumbidgee as far as Lang's Crossing-place (with Cadell's steamer Albury continuing up-river to Gundagai). By October 1859 "Hay" had been chosen as the name for the township [after John Hay (later Sir John), a wealthy squatter from the Upper Murray, member of the NSW New South Wales Legislative Assembly and former Secretary of Lands and Works]. Hay, situated on the Murrumbidgee, was gazetted as a town in 1859. In the late nineteenth century, several grand buildings representing Hay's aspirations to become the capital of the Riverina were built. However inter-colonial disputes over trade thwarted these aspirations and instead of booming Hay remained small and isolated, but importantly connected to Sydney via a rail line.
Postal Services
The first official postal service in Australia was established in April 1809, when the Sydney merchant Isaac Nichols was appointed as the first Postmaster in the colony of NSW. Prior to this, mail had been distributed directly by the captain of the ship on which the mail arrived, however this system was neither reliable nor secure.
In 1825 the colonial administration was empowered to establish a Postmaster General's Department, which had previously been administered from Britain.
In 1828 the first post offices outside of Sydney were established, with offices in Bathurst, Campbelltown, Parramatta, Liverpool, Newcastle, Penrith and Windsor. By 1839 there were forty post offices in the colony, with more opened as settlement spread. During the 1860s, the advance of postal services was further increased as the railway network began to be established throughout NSW. In 1863, the Postmaster General W. H. Christie noted that accommodation facilities for Postmasters in some post offices was quite limited, and stated that it was a matter of importance that "post masters should reside and sleep under the same roof as the office".
The first telegraph line was opened in Victoria in March 1854 and in NSW in 1858. The NSW colonial government constructed two lines from the General Post Office, Sydney, one to the South Head Signal Station, the other to Liverpool. Development was slow in NSW compared to the other states, with the Government concentrating on the development of country offices before suburban ones. As the line spread, however, telegraph offices were built to accommodate the operators. Unlike the Post Office, the telegraph office needed specialised equipment and could not be easily accommodated in a local store or private residence. Post and telegraph offices operated separately until 1870 when the departments were amalgamated, after which time new offices were built to include both postal and telegraph services. In 1881 the first telephone exchange was opened in Sydney, three years after the first tests in Adelaide. As with the telegraph, the telephone system soon began to extend into country areas, with telephone exchanges appearing in country NSW from the late 1880s onwards. Again the Post Office was responsible for the public telephone exchange, further emphasising its place in the community as a provider of communications services.
The appointment of James Barnet as Acting Colonial Architect in 1862 coincided with a considerable increase in funding to the public works program. Between 1865 and 1890 the Colonial Architects Office was responsible for the building and maintenance of 169 Post Offices and telegraph offices in NSW. The post offices constructed during this period featured in a variety of architectural styles, as Barnet argued that the local parliamentary representatives always preferred "different patterns".
The construction of new post offices continued throughout the 1890s Depression years under the leadership of Walter Liberty Vernon, who held office from 1890 to 1911. While twenty-seven post offices were built between 1892 and 1895, funding to the Government Architect's Office was cut from 1893 to 1895, causing Vernon to postpone a number of projects.
Following Federation in 1901, the Commonwealth Government took over responsibility for post, telegraph and telephone offices, with the Department of Home Affairs Works Division being made responsible for post office construction. In 1916 construction was transferred to the Department of Works and Railways, with the Department of the Interior responsible during World War II.
On 22 December 1975, the Postmaster General's Department was abolished and replaced by the Postal and Telecommunications Department. This was the creation of Telecom and Australia Post. In 1989, the Australian Postal Corporation Act established Australia Post as a self-funding entity, heralding a new direction in property management, including a move away from the larger more traditional buildings towards smaller shop-front style post offices.
For much of its history, the post office has been responsible for a wide variety of community services including mail distribution, an agency for the Commonwealth Savings Bank, electoral enrolments, and the provision of telegraph and telephone services. The town post office has served as a focal point for the community, most often built in a prominent position in the centre of town close to other public buildings, creating a nucleus of civic buildings and community pride.
Hay Post Office
The town of Hay grew up around what was an important crossing on the Murrumbidgee River. Known as Langs Crossing, it was a major ford for droving cattle from Queensland across the river to the developing Victoria goldfields. With regular traffic crossing the river, a small settlement began to develop to serve the drovers. Captain Francis Cadell, a local landowner and river boat operator, made the first representations for a Post Office in the late 1850s. Cadell approached the Post Master General George Macleay for a post office, suggesting Alex Dunbar who looked after Cadell's store, as postmaster. This first request was rejected by the PMG, which preferred to wait until the town was officially gazetted until approving an office.
Hay was gazetted in 1859, being named after the local member of parliament Sir John Hay. With Hay an official town, the first postal service could commence. A weekly delivery between Condobolin and Hay began from 1 April 1859, with the delivery place being Cadell's store. The first postmaster appointed to Hay was Robert Neilson who had taken over the duties of Alex Dunbar at Cadell's store after Dunbar returned to England. Neilson resigned his position as postmaster in 1861, as the workload of running a store and the post office was too much. In 1862 the then postmaster Alfred Prince, who was manager of Cadell's former store (now owned by Mr Bardwell), operated the Post Office out of a new purpose-built, brick extension adjacent to the store.
In April 1864 a telegraph station was opened in Hay. Around this time, Alfred Prince resigned as postmaster and Bardwell acted as a temporary replacement. In January 1865 a temporary officer was sent to Hay from Sydney and operated the post office out of the telegraph station, a government-owned building. At this stage the postal and telegraph departments operated as separate government departments and subsequently usually operated out of separate buildings. With this in mind, a number of local businessmen in Hay offered to locate the post office within their businesses, at the charge of (Pounds)1 per week. However, it was decided that the local telegraph operator, C. A. Middleton, would also act as postmaster, with post and telegraph services operating out of the same building.
In 1869 Middleton was promoted to a position in Wagga and was replaced by E. D. Scott as Post and Telegraph Master. Scott received an assistant in 1870 after complaining to the Post Master General that his duties as post and telegraph master were too much for one person. Scott was responsible for repairing damaged telegraph lines in the district and would often be called away from the Post Office, leaving his wife in charge of the Post Office and the telegraph office closed. Scott was granted £25 per annum to pay for an assistant, but left the job soon after being replaced by W. H. Hilliard, who in turn was replaced in December 1870 by R. S. Arnott.
During the late nineteenth century, Hay was developing as an important centre for the Riverina. The improvements to community services were a direct result of this economic and population growth. In 1876 the Government Savings Bank opened a branch in the Hay Post Office, and it was recommended that a new Post and Telegraph office be erected. The following year, a postal inspector visited Hay and recommended that a new building be erected in Moppett Street at the rear of the Court House. The Hay Council rejected this site in August 1878 as being too isolated, with a site in Lachlan Street being suggested instead. Meanwhile, extensions had been made to the old building.
The site that the Council proposed was the site of the existing post and telegraph office. Adjacent to this site was the former Hay lock-up that was being replaced by a new gaol (Hay Gaol), then in the course of construction. It was this site that was decided on for the new office. Tenders were called and early in 1881 the tender of E. Noble & Co. was adopted for erection of the new building at an estimated cost of £3,030. Designed by Colonial Architect James Barnet, the new Post & Telegraph building was completed and occupied by 18 December 1882. An iron-rail fence and stabling were added a couple of years later.
In 1890 a clock, which had been removed from the Bathurst Post Office, was placed on the balcony. This clock proved unreliable and it was decided to erect a clock tower to house a new clock. In July 1901 the clock tower was completed with a new four dial clock and hour bell installed at a total cost of £495. The design of the clock tower was possibly undertaken by the NSW Government Architect's Office under Walter Liberty Vernon. A local watchmaker, Mr Hardingham, was given the contract to wind and regulate the clock for £8 per annum.
In 1974 the Post Office was extensively renovated and restored, which included the addition of public telephone boxes on the southern side. In 1979 the office was classified by the National Trust of Australia (NSW). In 1988 Hay Post Office was painted in a sympathetic colour scheme and a pergola with climbing plants was constructed on the footpath at the front of the building.
Description
Hay Post Office was constructed in 1882 in the main street and civic centre of Hay. It is a two-storey Victorian Italianate building, with a three-storey clock tower on the northeastern corner. An English bond brick building, it features an ashlar rendered eastern facade wrapping around part of the side facades. The remainder of the two-storey section of the building is face brick. There are two rendered, single-storey later additions to the rear along the northern side of the building, as well as a face brick s-90s single-storey addition to the western side of the building.
The roof of the two-storey section of the building is a U-shaped hipped roof clad with slate or similar tiling. There is also later, profiled sheet metal cladding the sawtooth roof over the rear, single-storey mailroom and rear flat sections of roof. The slate or similar tiling is also present over the first single-storey addition along the northern side and over the southern side addition over the telephone booths. The stepped corner tower is capped with a pyramidal, rolled and lapped sheet metal roof, with a narrow hipped roof section cladding the step below the clock faces with the same material. There is a finial at the apex. Three chimneys punctuate the two-storey roofline, one each to the north, west and south sides. The chimneys are rendered and painted cream with moulded tops. There are crown-type chimney pots topping the northern and southern chimneys, and none on the western chimney.
The clock tower has four clock faces installed on the upper level of each side, with black lettering on a white background. The tower is detailed with fish scaled shingles and arches to the lower level. The bell of the tower tolls hourly and is now controlled by an electric motor. It has been suggested that the original mechanism is retained within the tower, however the tower was inaccessible during the time of inspection in May 2000.
Hay Post Office has an ashlar rendered front facade and corners in a cream and grey colour scheme, with moulded arched openings continuous with horizontal moulded string courses at the ground floor arch bases, above and below the first floor and at the base of the upper floor arches. There is also a dentil course running around beneath the eaves.
Hay Post Office has a symmetrical two-storey arcade along the eastern facade. The ground floor of the facade has a five bay arcade of round-headed arches fronting Lachlan Street, surmounted by a first-floor arcade with groups of smaller, paired arches either side of a central group of triple arches. The ground-floor arcade is open, with modern brown tiled flooring and steps, a non-original, varnished boarded timber soffit and pendant lights. There is a wrought-iron gate within the arch at the northern end of the arcade. The arcade is continuous with the southern side addition containing the public post boxes and public telephone booths. There is a concrete ramp along the southern boundary leading from the telephone booths.
The first-floor arcade has a modern clay tiled floor and a rendered soffit with a coved cornice. The arches each have green-painted, wrought-iron balustrade sections sitting on a low masonry balustrade wall. There are modern pendant lights and there is a large aluminium vent in the wall to the lunchroom. Access to the clock tower is via a steel ladder at the northern end of the first-floor arcade.
The ground floor of Hay Post Office comprises four main areas. These include the carpeted offices and retail area to the northern side of the building, and the sheet-vinyl-floored mail room and post boxes areas.
The retail area has a lowered, varnished boarded timber ceiling containing air conditioning vents, whereas there is a false ceiling in the northern office and plasterboard in the mail room, hall and centre office. There is a tile-patterned moulded ceiling in the post boxes area with a deep moulded cornice and there is the possibility of the original ceiling being retained behind the boarded ceiling of the retail area. Lighting in the ground floor is predominantly attached and suspended fluorescent lighting, with pendant lights in the retail area.
There are original architraves on the original outer wall windows, mostly of the retail area, and much simpler, later trims to the early and modern rear addition windows. Some original architraves have been modified. Very little skirting was detected on this level, with simple strip skirting from the modern, standard Australia Post fitout.
Windows of the ground floor are predominantly single upper and lower pane timber sash windows with arched top sashes to the eastern and northern facades. There are modern internal windows in the centre office partitions, as well as modern fixed light windows in the hall and sawtooth roof over the mail room, with louvres above the post boxes. All doors on the ground floor are modern, including large sliding doors off the hall to the mail room and post boxes area and flush timber veneer doors.
The ground-floor walls are predominantly painted and rendered masonry in a grey and white colour scheme. The rear mail room has face red brick walls, with timber veneer panelling to the northern office and laminated and glazed partitions in the centre office. There are some asbestos cement sheet infill sections in the post boxes area and only one chimney breast has been retained in the retail area that has been bricked in.
The main stairwell at the centre of the ground-floor area appears to be original. The stair has polished turned timber posts and square balusters, with shaped handrail and carpeted treads leading up to a curved, vinyl-floored landing. The skirting appears to be original and there is a moulded arch in the hallway over the lower flight of steps.
The first floor of Hay Post Office comprises two major areas, including the combined lunch room/conference area at the front of the building and the staff amenities to the rear, including male and female bathrooms. This level has sheet-vinyl-flooring to all areas, except for the modern tiling in the bathrooms.
Ceilings on this level are plasterboard with a coved cornice. There are suspended and attached fluorescent lights throughout, as well as air conditioning vents and ducting in the walls and ceilings, with some bulkheads resulting.
The French doors and original windows of the first-floor arcade retain original architraves, with the exception of the northern window of the lunchroom. There are some remnants of original skirting along most of the outer walls of this level, however there are none to the internal walls.
The first floor has original French doors with later hardware and fixed arched fanlights. Original timber sash windows have single upper and lower panes with arched top sashes and there is a six-pane, upper and lower sash window in the stairwell. Internal doors are all timber veneer finish flush doors, with large fixed fanlights.
The internal walls of the first floor are asbestos cement sheet partitions, with a small section of brick wall to the southern side of the east-west hallway. The perimeter walls are painted rendered masonry and there is tiling in the bathrooms, with modern fitouts. There is a modern folding divider wall between the lunch room and conference area. Two chimney breasts have been retained on this level, however all fireplace fixtures have been removed.
Hay Post Office is set back a substantial distance from the curb, providing a forecourt for the building. This forecourt is paved, and contains planter boxes, seating and a pergola structure over the curving footpath at the front. There is also a pair of rendered square pillars with wrought-iron gates attached, located on either side of the laneway entrance, level with the front facade. These pillars match those on the northern side of the adjacent Department of Land and Water Conservation building.
The surrounding buildings are predominantly one to two-storey commercial and retail, including the two-storey Victorian Free Classical Westpac Bank on the corner to the south, and the large, single-storey WL Vernon designed, ripple iron building to the north, currently housing the Department of Land and Water Conservation. There is an unsympathetic commercial premises erected between the Post Office and the Westpac Bank, which also impacts upon the historic streetscape.
Signage to the building comprises "Hay Post Office" lettering located between the moulded string courses at the first-floor level of the Lachlan Street facade, with the royal insignia "ER" above and at the centre. There is a standard "Australia Post" sign on a pole in the planter bed located away from the building at the southern end of the forecourt.
The large rear yard of the building is concrete and bitumen, separating the Post Office from the red brick, single storey Telstra building at the western boundary of the site. There is also a temporary office building along the southern side of the site, adjacent to the Telstra building, and a lane cutting across the site along the northern boundary. Behind the Telstra building to the west is a telecommunications tower which dominates the skyline.
Hay Post Office was reported to be generally in very good condition as at 3 August 2000. The archaeological potential of the site is considered high.
The exteriors of Hay Post Office remain largely intact to their original form. The rear recent addition to the mail room is unsympathetic for the architectural style of the building. The interiors have been extensively changed to accommodate new retail and office facilities, although some original fabric has been retained including mouldings and architraves.
Modifications and dates
The original two-storey building was occupied in 1882. It is possible that the single-storey hipped roof addition to the northwestern corner of the two-storey section is original or an early addition.
A dwarf-iron fence and railing was erected and stabling provided during the mid-1880s.
During 1890, a clock was installed on the first-floor arcade.
The corner clock tower was constructed in July 1901 with a four-dial clock and an hour striking bell. The earlier clock was removed.
The construction date of the flat-roofed, western, single-storey rendered addition along the northern side is unknown, however it appears to be a much later addition.
Also unknown is the date of the reconfiguration of the mailroom and retail area for installation of post boxes as shown in the 1917 plans.
In 1974 extensive renovations and restoration was carried out, including an extension containing telephone booths on the southern side. Further extensions and additions were made to the rear of the building, probably including the construction of the centre partitioned office and reconfiguration of the first floor, the retail space and post boxes area.
In 1988 the Post Office was repainted in a sympathetic colour scheme, and at about this time, a pergola has been erected on the footpath to the front of the building. This is possibly when the varnished boarded timber soffit and retail area ceilings were installed.
During s-90s the construction of the modern, unsympathetic, large single-storey, red brick mailroom addition occurred to the rear.
Intrusive elements include the aluminium grille in the eastern wall of the lunch room, the exposed air conditioning ducting throughout the building and the large telecommunications tower to the west of the building.
Heritage listing
Hay Post Office is significant at a State level for its historical associations, aesthetic qualities and social meaning.
Hay Post Office is associated with the early development of the town, as it is linked with the original postal services established in 1859, the same year in which the town was gazetted. The current post office in Hay has been an important communications centre for the Riverina area, and is linked with the development of telegraph and telephone services to the region. The form and scale of Hay Post Office also reflects prominence and development of Hay as the major centre for the Riverina region in the late nineteenth century.
Hay Post Office is a prominent member of the Witcombe Place group of historic buildings in the civic centre of Hay, which greatly contribute to the character of the town.
Hay Post Office is aesthetically significant because it is an outstanding example of the Victorian Italianate style of architecture, and makes an important aesthetic contribution to the main thoroughfare of Hay. Hay Post Office is a strong example of the range of post offices designed by NSW Colonial Architect James Barnet.
Hay Post Office is also considered to be significant to the Hay community's sense of place.
Hay Post Office was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 22 December 2000 having satisfied the following criteria.
The place is important in demonstrating the course, or pattern, of cultural or natural history in New South Wales.
Hay Post Office is associated with the early development of the town, as it is linked with the original postal services established in 1859, the same year in which the town was gazetted. The current Post Office in Hay has been an important communications centre for the Riverina area, and is linked with the development of telegraph and telephone services to the region.
The form and scale of Hay Post Office reflects the prominence and development of Hay as the major centre for the Riverina region in the late nineteenth century.
Hay Post Office also provides evidence of the changing nature of postal and telecommunications practices in NSW.
The place has a strong or special association with a person, or group of persons, of importance of cultural or natural history of New South Wales's history.
NSW Colonial Architect James Barnet, a key practitioner of the Victorian Italianate style of architecture, designed Hay Post Office. The Colonial Architect's Office under Barnet designed and maintained a number of post offices across NSW between 1865 and 1890.
The 1901 clock tower addition was possibly designed by the NSW Government Architect's Office under Walter Liberty Vernon.
The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.
Hay Post Office is aesthetically significant because it is a strong example of the Victorian Italianate style of architecture and makes an important aesthetic contribution to the main thoroughfare of Hay.
Hay Post Office is a prominent member of the Witcombe Place group of historic buildings in the civic centre of Hay, which greatly contribute to the character of the town. This group includes the Shire Offices (former 1896 court house), the Department of Land and Water Conservation and the present Westpac Bank.
The scale, architectural style and location of the building, along with the later but sympathetic corner clock tower, make it a local landmark for Hay.
The round arched arcades compare with Forbes Post Office (1881). It is also important for its unusual clock tower and the treatment of the front facade.
The place has strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group in New South Wales for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.
Hay Post Office is an important local landmark, and has been the centre of communications for the town for over a century. As such, it is considered to be highly significant to the community of Hays sense of place.
The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.
The Hay Post Office site has some potential to provide archaeological information about the previous use of the site, particularly the Gaol.
The place possesses uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.
Hay Post Office is a particularly fine example of the work by James Barnet, and features an unusual facade treatment. The clock tower is an interesting example of a sympathetic Federation period addition to a Victorian period building.
The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural or natural places/environments in New South Wales.
Hay Post Office is a strong example of the Victorian Italianate style of architecture, and is representative of the work of Colonial Architect James Barnet on post offices across NSW.
See also
References
Bibliography
Attribution
External links
New South Wales State Heritage Register
Post office buildings in New South Wales
Articles incorporating text from the New South Wales State Heritage Register
James Barnet buildings
Commonwealth Heritage List places in New South Wales
Hay, New South Wales
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The University of Rajshahi, also known as Rajshahi University or RU (), is a public co-educational research university in Bangladesh situated near the northern Bangladeshi city of Rajshahi in a campus at Motihar, East of the Rajshahi city center. It is the second largest, in terms of academic activities and also the second oldest, university in Bangladesh. The university's 60 departments are organized into ten faculties. It is considered one of the top research universities in Bangladesh. Researchers of this university have recently contributed a significant amount of effort and played a key role in bringing back medieval Bangladeshi Muslin fiber. It has a formidable alumnus base around Bangladesh and abroad. Because of its beautiful and well-planned verdurous campus, academic atmosphere and traditional inclination towards outdoor sports, it is popularly known as the Cambridge of the East.
History
The first proposal to establish a university came in 1917, when Calcutta University created the Sadler Commission to assess the university system in Bengal. However, the recommendations of the report had no immediate consequences.
The University of Dhaka was established in 1921. Demand for a university in the northern part of East Bengal gained momentum when two universities were set-up quickly in West Pakistan, using funding diverted from East Bengal, without the establishment of any in the east. Students of Rajshahi College were at the forefront of the movement demanding a new university. Finally, Rajshahi was selected as the home for the second university in East Bengal and the Rajshahi University Act of 1953 (East Bengal Act XV of 1953) was passed by the East Pakistan provincial Assembly on 31 March 1953. Itrat Hossain Zuberi, the principal of Rajshahi College was appointed its first vice-chancellor.
Initially, the university was housed in temporary locations, such as the local Circuit House and Boro Kuthi, an 18th-century Dutch establishment. B B Hindu Academy, a local school, housed the library, teachers' lounge and the medical center. The university started out with 20 professors, 161 students (of which 5 were female) and six departments — Bengali, English, History, Law, Philosophy and Economics. In 1964, the offices moved to the permanent campus.
The 1960s was a turbulent period in Bangladesh, when demands for East Pakistani autonomy became stronger. The students and staff of the university started playing an increasing role in politics. On 18 February 1969, Shamsuzzoha, a professor, was killed by the police when he tried to prevent them from shooting student demonstrators. This date is now commemorated as Zoha Day. During the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, the campus was used as a base by the Pakistan Army. A number of professors, students and officers of the university were killed by the Pakistan army.
After independence, a new act regarding the administration of the university came into being — the Rajshahi University Act of 1973. The post-independence years saw the university grow steadily in student enrolment and size of the academic staff. However the 1980s were turbulent for the university, as the students agitated with other institutions of the country against the military rule of Hossain Muhammad Ershad. Since the early 1990s, the university has seen relative calm and lowering of session backlogs, though active student politics remains a contentious issue.
Emblem
The circle of the emblem represents the world. An open book is shown in red and gold: red represents one of the colors of the national flag and gold the value of education. The body of the book is blue, the color of the sky, and at the center is a shapla flower (Nymphaeaceae), the national flower of Bangladesh.
Campus
The university's main campus is in Motihar, on the eastern side of the city of Rajshahi and a mile from the Bangladeshi coast of the river Padma. The campus area is nearly . Access to the walled-off campus is controlled through three security gates. It houses eleven large academic buildings — five for the arts, business studies and social sciences, four for the natural and applied sciences and two for agricultural studies.
Rail Line and University Station
The Dhaka-Rajshahi rail line passes through the campus and it has a dedicated station named the University Station. It is near the Shahid Shohrawardy Hall on the southern border of the campus. There is an internal bazar nearby for the students only, called the station bazar.
Gates
There are four gates of the university, three being upon the Dhaka - Rajshahi Highway. The westernmost gate is the Kazla gate which provides access to the Western part of the campus mainly playgrounds and residential areas. The easternmost gate is the Binodpur gate that provides access to the Eastern Part of the campus and the Main gate in between these two provides access to the main administrative and academic portion of the campus. The fourth gate is on the other side of the campus and provides access to the campus from the other side of the city. The main gate used to create an architectural optical illusion while entering or exiting the campus through it as it seemed to the visitor that the more he tries to go nearer the more the Administrative Building goes far away.
Parks, Lakes and Sanctuaries
There is a central park of the university near the Shaheed Minar Complex. It is a small park providing a very good environment and a place for spending leisure for the students and residents of the campus. Rajshahi University Botanical Garden is also a park inside the campus home to some very rare species of trees and plants. There used to be a mini park-like plantation near the main gate but it was cut down during mid 2020s. There are two big lakes inside the campus. One is behind the Shahid Shamsuzzoha Hall popularly known as the Shorobor and another is behind the female hostels known as a part of the Junge Genome Project. Apart from these, there are nearly fifty ponds around the campus.
There is a large bird sanctuary inside the campus called the Jungle Genome Project. It is an ecological project of the Zoology Department and is has natural plantations and lakes inside it.
Paris Road
Paris road is a street in the campus which is often considered the signature of the Rajshahi University Campus. It starts from the adjoining point of Kazla Gate road, Paschimpara road and Paris road near the Juberi Guest House and runs straight East from this. Then it keeps going past the mango plantations, Kazla pond and VC's residence and reaches the Shamsuzoha Square. Then from the Shamsuzzoha Square, it goes East past the University Bank, Second Administrative Building, University Central Bus Station, Central Mosque, university park and Shahid Minar Complex and Shahid Smiti Sangrahashala Museum and ends at the gate of the Sher e Bangla Hall.
Murals, Sculptures and Monuments
There are a considerable number of murals on the campus. The Shahid Minar Complex holds two murals one on the background wall of the Open Theatre Stage and another on the background wall of the Shahid Minar's platform. A mural near the Golden Jubilee Tower is a masterpiece artifact made of steel depicting struggle of men and women. Besides these the obelisk of Martyred professor Dr. Shamsuzzoha has a mural depicting him and his famous quote. The Bangabandhu hall, Sher-e-Bangla hall and Syed Ameer Ali Hal have murals of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, AK Fazlul Haque and Syed Ameer Ali respectively.
Monuments around the campus are the Shaheed Minar, Mass-Graveyard monument and the Shabash Bangladesh. The sculptures are the martyred intellectual memorial monument near the central library, Sfulingo in the Shahid Samsuzzoha Hall premises, Martyred Professor Habibur Rahman's sculpture on Shahid Habibur Rahman hall's entrance. There are several memorial monuments and murals around the campus.
Facilities
Museums
The university is the site for the two oldest museums in Bangladesh. They are - the Varendra Research Museum, which is the oldest museum in Bangladesh and the Shahid Smriti Sangrahasala, which is the oldest liberation war museum in Bangladesh.
A few miles from the main campus is the Varendra Research Museum,. It is one of the richest repertory of Bengal sculptures in the world. Established in 1910 by Ramaprasad Chanda, the museum became a part of the university in the 1960s when a financial crisis threatened its existence. Under the university, the museum has thrived, adding a folklore gallery to its impressive collection from ancient and medieval Bengal.
Juberi Guest House
Juberi Guest House is one of the earliest structures on the campus. It is actually a complex of guest house, lounge and café. Juberi House is the home of Rajshahi University Club and it is the center of the political activities of the teachers and fellows. There are four buildings providing caravansary facilities for the guests of the university. It provides gymnasium facilities for the teachers and it has a well maintained lone tennis court
Sport and Other facilities for cultural activities
The university is the home to the Rajshahi University Stadium, the only stadium dedicated for a university in entire Bangladesh. This stadium has 30,000 spaces and it is used for intra-university and inter-university sports tournaments. It is named after Sheikh Kamal, the eldest son of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and a famous sports organizer and freedom fighter.
There is a swimming pool with stands for spectators and a gymnasium and indoor stadium situated near the stadium.
Architecture
University of Rajshahi is home to many architectural and artistic landmarks. Most of its academic, cultural, residential and administrative buildings are of modern architectural style. The Shaheed Minar is an important example, complete with a mural designed by Murtaza Bashir. The Senate House is a modern mini-parliament house, has 206 rooms and is fully air-conditioned. It is usually used for meetings of the senate of the university, but it accommodates national and international conferences, seminars and symposia. In front of the Senate House is Shabash Bangladesh, one of the largest war memorial sculptures, designed and constructed by Nitun Kundu. The name comes from a poem by Sukanta Bhattacharya of the same name, the last four lines of which are engraved under the structure.
Golden Jubilee Tower, a 2003 addition to the university's array of sculptures, commemorates its 50th anniversary. It is right beside the main gate. It has also an open theatre and two beautiful murals. Other well-known buildings include the library and the university mosque. The Department of Fine Arts hosts a sizeable collection of contemporary art, while Varendra Museum has a large collection of ancient and medieval art.
Organization and administration
The university is run according to the Rajshahi University Act of 1973. This act, passed in 1973, allows the university considerably more autonomy than most other peer institutions. The president of Bangladesh is the de facto chancellor, but the role is mainly ceremonial. The highest official after the chancellor is the vice-chancellor, selected by the senate of the university every four years. The vice-chancellor, as of June 2017, is M. Abdus Sobhan.
Other important officers include the pro vice-chancellor, the registrar, the controller of examinations and the proctor. The proctor is in direct charge of student activities and is the official with most direct contact with the students. The most important statutory bodies of the university are the senate, the academic council and the syndicate.
Most of Rajshahi University's funding comes from the government. The Bangladesh University Grants Commission is the body responsible for allocating funds to all public universities.
Students are admitted after they pass the Higher Secondary Exam (HSC exam). In earlier days students partook in entrance examinations, a separate one for each department. This has been a contentious issue, as there used to be only one exam for each faculty, after which students would be allocated to departments according to their result and choice of program.
The tuition fees are relatively low; nevertheless, a hike in admission fees, during the 2006–07 session, drew criticism from student bodies. In 2007, the university awarded a total of 340 scholarships, whose annual value is around 1.1 million taka. In addition, there are merit awards given by residential halls, departments and the university itself. Students are eligible for the Prime Minister's Gold Medal award.
All colleges of the northern and southern regions of the country used to be affiliated with University of Rajshahi. However, the administration of colleges across the country was taken over by the National University when it was established in 1992.
List of vice-chancellors
Itrat Husain Zuberi (6 July 1953 – 30 September 1957)
Momtazuddin Ahmed (1 October 1957 – 30 August 1965)
Muhammad Shamsul Huq (31 August 1965 – 4 August 1969)
Syed Sajjad Hussain (5 August 1969 – 18 July 1971)
Muhammad Abdul Bari (19 July 1971 – 8 January 1972)
Khan Sarwar Murshid (1 February 1972 – 3 August 1974)
Mazharul Islam (4 August 1974 – 18 September 1975)
Syed Ali Ahsan (27 September 1975 – 22 June 1977)
Muhammad Abdul Bari (7 July 1977 – 17 February 1981)
Makbular Rahman Sarkar (26 February 1981 – 22 February 1982)
Moslem Huda (22 February 1982 – 20 September 1982)
Abdul Rakib (4 October 1982 – 19 March 1988)
Amanullah Ahmed (20 March 1988 – 22 July 1992)
M. Anisur Rahman (22 July 1992 – 22 August 1994)
M. Yusuf Ali (22 August 1994 – 16 February 1997)
Abdul Khaleque (17 February 1997 – 3 August 1999)
M. Sayeedur Rahman Khan (4 August 1999 – 13 November 2001)
Faisul Islam Farouqui (13 November 2001 – 5 June 2005)
Md. Altaf Hossain (5 June 2005 – 15 May 2008)
Mumnunul Keramat (acting) (16 May 2008 – 28 February 2009)
M Abdus Sobhan (26 February 2009 – 25 February 2013)
Muhammad Mizanuddin (19 March 2013 – 20 March 2017)
M Abdus Sobhan (7 May 2017 – 6 May 2021)
Professor Dr. Golam Shabbir Sattar (29 August 2021 – present )
Faculties and departments
The university's 58 departments are organised into 12 faculties: Arts, Engineering, Fine Arts, Law, Science, Business Studies, Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Earth Sciences, Agriculture, Fisheries, Veterinary & Animal Sciences. The Arts and the Law faculties are the oldest, both established in 1953, closely followed by the Faculty of Science (1956) and the Faculty of Engineering (est. 2009). The university's departments represent the traditional studies in arts, commerce, sciences and engineering through programs such as English,History, Languages and Linguistics, Economics, Business Studies, Mathematics, Applied Mathematics (est.2002), Physics, Computer Science & Engineering, Chemistry, Statistics, Geology & Mining, Geography, Psychology, Zoology, Botany, etc. The university is increasingly emphasising more specialised programs such as Pharmacy, Biochemistry, Information and Communication Engineering (ICE) (est. 2000), Genetics and breeding (est. 1996).
Faculty of Life Sciences
Botany
Zoology
Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology
Microbiology
Clinical Psychology
Psychology
Faculty of Arts
Prominent departments in the faculty of Arts are
Department of Philosophy
Department of History
Department of English
Department of Bengali
Department of Islamic History and Culture
Department of Arabic
Department of Islamic Studies
Department of Music
Department of Theater
Department of Persian Language and Literature
Department of Urdu
Department of Sanskrit
Faculty of Fine Arts
The Faculty of Fine Arts has 3 departments;
Faculty of Law
The Faculty of Law has two departments:
Department of Law
Department of Law and Land Administration
The Department of Law is one of the pioneer institutes for graduate level legal education in Bangladesh as well as in South Asia. It was the first institution in South Asia that offered B.Jur. Honours (Bachelor of Jurisprudence) from the year 1970. Now it offers LLB (Honors), LLM, Evening LLM, MPhil and Ph.D. in the field of Law. It has a great number of alumni and former members of the faculty around the world including former Chief Justice of Bangladesh, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, current and former ministers and many former and current judges of the apex courts of Bangladesh and many more formidable legal and political minds of the country. Abul Hasnat Muhammad Qamaruzzaman was a student of this department.
The Department of Law and Land Administration was established in the session of 2015–16. It is the pioneer department in Bangladesh in the field of education on Laws relating to land administration, land management and land survey. All core courses of Law are taught here. Graduates of this discipline can apply for all jobs which are for Law graduates, including the positions of Assistant Judge and Judicial Magistrate. They are able to practice as both civil and criminal lawyers and also as Income Tax lawyers. In addition, they are able to apply for jobs in the field of land administration/management. It is currently under consideration that a separate BCS Cadre (Land) may be created and graduates from this discipline will only be able to apply for those jobs. The programs offered by this Department include LLB (Honours), LLM, MPhil and Ph.D.
Initiatives are under process to establish a new department in the field of corporate law under this faculty which is going to be the first institution for graduate level education in this field within Bangladesh.
This faculty is well known for the innovative environment on its premises. A huge library is provided here for the students and researchers. The Bangladesh code was developed and was given a great shape for practical use under the leadership of a former chairman of this department in 2006.
One of the leading debating clubs of the campus belongs to this department. Having a great tradition of mooting, and some nationally popular great legal practitioners as alumni, its Mooting Club RUMCS is well recognized and reputed in Bangladesh.
Faculty of Engineering
The Faculty of Engineering include the following departments
Textile Engineering
Information and Communication Engineering (ICE) (est. 2000)
Computer Science & Engineering
Applied Chemistry & Chemical Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering
Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) (est. 2015)
In the late 1990 and 2000s, programs in computer science & engineering and Information & Communication Engineering were introduced. The newest addition to the Faculty of Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2015. The university used to have a separate engineering program through the Bangladesh Institute of Technology Rajshahi, which became an independent university: Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology in 2002. University authorities have decided to merge Applied physics and electronic engineering department with the electrical and electronic engineering department on 5 December 2018.
Faculty of Social Science
The Social Science Faculty has the following departments:
Economics
Political Science
Social Work
Sociology
Mass Communication and Journalism
Information Science & Library Management
Public Administration
Anthropology
Folklore
International Relations
Faculty of Business Studies
Faculty of Business Studies has following departments:
Finance
Accounting & Information Systems
Marketing
Management Studies
Banking & Insurance
Tourism & Hospitality Management
All of these departments are in the Rabindra Building.
Faculty of Science
Faculty of Science has the following departments:
Mathematics
Physics
Chemistry
Statistics
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Pharmacy
Population Science and Human Resource Development (website:http://www.popsru.org)
Applied Mathematics
Physical Education and Sports Sciences
Most of these departments are in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th science buildings.
Faculty of Agriculture
Faculty of Agriculture has the following departments:
Agronomy and Agricultural Extension
Crop Science and Technology was established in 2005. It offers a 4-year B.Sc.Ag.(Hons) degree and 18 months M.S. degree. MPhil and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees are also offered. About 250 students are studying in the department.
All of these departments are in the Agricultural Faculty Building. Only 'practical work' is performed in Narikelbaria Campus. Founded in 2000, the Faculty of Agriculture was formed when a local agricultural college was absorbed into the university.
Faculty of Geosciences
Geography & Environmental Studies
Geology & Mining
Faculty of Veterinary & Animal Sciences
Veterinary & Animal Sciences
Faculty of Fisheries
Fisheries
Institutes
There are six institutes of Rajshahi University.
Institutes of Bangladesh Studies
Institutes of Biological Science
Institute of Business Administration
Institute of Education and Research
Institute of English and Other Languages
Institute of Environmental Science
Affiliating National Professional Academies
Bangladesh Police Academy.
Affiliating Non-Government Engineering Tech Colleges under Rajshahi University
Abul Hossain College of Engineering, Rangpur
Advanced Engineering College, Rajshahi
Ashrai Engineering College, Rajshahi
BCMC college of ENGINEERING and TECHNOLOGY, Jashore
Epsilon Engineering College, Rajshahi
Global Institute of Science and Technology, Rajshahi
Imperial College of Engineering, Khulna
KSFL Engineering College, Dinajpur
Pabna Engineering College, Pabna
Rajshahi Engineering Science & Technology college, Rajshahi
Rangpur Engineering College
South East Engineering College, Khulna
TMSS Engineering College, Thengamara (Rangpur Road), Bougra (Website: http://tec.edu.bd/)
United B.Sc. Engineering College
Affiliating Non-Government Agriculture Colleges under Rajshahi University
Tamaltala Agriculture and Technical College, Natore
International Institute of Applied Science & Technology, Rangpur
Henry Institute of Bioscience and Technology, Sirajganj
Anowara College of Bioscience, Dinajpur
Rajshahi Institute of Biosciences, Rajshahi
Varendra Institute of Biosciences
Udayan College of Bioscience & Technology, Rajshahi(UCBT)
Bhashasoinik Gaziul Haque Institute of Bioscience, Bogura
Student life
Housing
The university has 18 residential halls for students, six for women and eleven for men and one International Dormitory. The halls are named after prominent Bangladeshi historical and cultural figures, some of them from Rajshahi. The largest men's hall is Shahid Habibur Rahman Hall, named after a mathematics professor killed on campus during the 1971 war by the Pakistani Army. The largest women's hall is Monnujan Hall, followed by Begum Rokeya Hall, named after Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, a leading figure in women's rights activism in Bengal.
The housing system can accommodate more than 10,000 students, which has created a deepening accommodation crisis as the student body has risen to 25,000. Apart from the seat limitations, the amenities of these halls do not always meet decent accommodation standards. This has led to the establishment of many privately owned off-campus "messes". The residential halls provide meals, which are subsidised by the university authorities.
Names of halls
Activities
The physical education department of the university has 27 instructors and is equipped with a 25,000-seat stadium, two gymnasiums, one swimming pool, four football grounds, one hockey ground, four tennis courts, two basketball courts and a squash court.
The Teacher Students Center was designed to be the center of cultural activities of the university. Reception of fresh students, celebration of national holidays, and the annual cultural competition are key cultural events at the campus. The university is home to recitation groups like Shwanan, and drama groups like Anushilon and the Rajshahi University Drama Association. A vibrant fine arts scene thrives around the Department of Fine Arts, and the campus hosts exhibitions each year. The university has branches of all major national cultural groups, including Udichi and Gono Natto Shongstha.
During the three major national days — Language Movement Day (21 February), Independence Day (26 March) and Victory Day (16 December) — the university hosts public meetings, cultural programs and political activities. On these days, students and teachers, going barefoot, congregate around the Shaheed Minar and pay their respect. During the major Muslim religious occasions of Eid, the university is usually deserted as students go home to be with their families. Other religiously important days like Shabe-barat are observed through discussions and religious activities. The major Hindu festival celebrated in the university is Saraswati Puja—Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, is worshiped in a central location as well as individually in many residential halls. The Bengali new year, Pohela Baisakh is also observed with much pomp.
Notable alumni
Category:University of Rajshahi alumni
Incidents and controversies
During the 1980s, the four-year honors course took as long as eight years due to the session backlogs, resulting mainly from conflicts between factions of political groups. Since the early 1990s, student politics has been calmer, with student body elections not being held for more than a decade. The student groups have been demanding elections whereas others feel student politics should be banned.
In late 2004 and early 2005, two professors of Rajshahi University got assassinated within three months: Professor Yunus from the Economics department in December 2004 and Professor Taher from the Geology and Mining department in February 2005. Both murders were suspected to be driven by political motivations. In 2006, the commander of Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh admitted to the Rapid Action Battalion interrogators that his operatives carried out the attack on Yunus, as well as the 2004 attack on writer Humayun Azad, the murder of another writer, bomb blasts, and attacks on cinemas.
Around the same time, a controversy over the hiring of over 500 new employees broke; detractors suggested that they were hired illegally, either in return for money or for political reasons.
In 2005, Muhammad Asadullah Al-Ghalib of the university was arrested for links with the Ahle Hadith Andolon Bangladesh, but was acquitted in 2008.
In August 2007, six detained professors of the university were temporarily suspended for their involvement in organizing protests that violated Emergency Power Rules, though they were discharged later from allegations and returned to the university.
In November 2017, a woman student was abducted from the university campus, sparking protests by students demanding her rescue and improved security on the campus.
In July 2018 protests and counter-violence erupted at various universities over the "quota reform movement," which sought to change the quota system that allocated 56% of Bangladesh government jobs to specific "entitled" classes. The vice-chancellor, Professor M. Abdus Sobhan, dismissed the quota-reform movement as an "antigovernmental movement with a motive to carry out sabotage."
The student and quota-reform movement leader Toriqul Islam, and 15 others, were attacked during their protest march, 2 July 2018, by opposing students. The Daily Star, which filmed the incident, identified 10 of the attackers as leaders and activists of the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a pro-Awami League (Bangladesh's ruling party) student organization. Video footage and photos published in Bangladeshi media showed BCL men with sticks, bamboo poles, a dagger and a hammer beating Toriqul, who suffered a broken leg and severe head injury. Several police officers standing nearby (unaware the incident was being filmed) did not intervene until the attack was finished, then took the victim to hospital without arresting any of the attackers, publicly denying it was anything more than a "scuffle." University authorities declined to investigate, for lack of a filed complaint. Images of the attack, distributed on social media, sparked widespread criticism over police and university administration inaction.
Despite student Toriqul's unresolved major injuries, the university's Rajshahi Medical College Hospital discharged him 5 July 2018, forcing his doctor to arrange for immediate surgery elsewhere.
Gallery
See also
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)
Bangladesh University of Textiles (BUTEX)
Islamic University, Bangladesh (IU) Kushtia
Islamic University of Technology (IUT)
List of universities in Bangladesh
University of Dhaka
Notes
References
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External links
Official website
Educational institutions established in 1953
Public universities of Bangladesh
1953 establishments in Pakistan
Organisations based in Rajshahi
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The game of World of Warcraft, or WoW, is set in a fictional planet known as Azeroth. Post-release expansions have extended the game's universe. The first, The Burning Crusade, introduced a second planet, Outland. Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm expanded upon Azeroth and respectively added Northrend, the frigid northern continent of Azeroth, and drastically changed various other continents by destroying some and unveiling new ones. The next expansion, Mists of Pandaria, added Pandaria, the southern continent previously hidden behind a perennial mist cover. Warlords of Draenor introduced the planet of Draenor, a version of Outland was before its partial destruction. The expansion Legion adds the Broken Isles, an island chain near the Maelstrom in the middle of the Great Sea, and the damaged planet Argus, the headquarters of the Burning Legion. The seventh expansion, Battle for Azeroth, added two new continents to the center of Azeroth. The latest expansion, Shadowlands, introduced the eponymous Shadowlands, a realm composed of five major zones: Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, Ravendreth, and the Maw.
In the game, players design a character to play based on a number of starting options, such as the race of a character and its type or class. Gameplay primarily consists of completing quests, dungeon runs and raids, and other in-game activities, in order to obtain rewards which will allow one to improve one's character and equipment in order to be able to complete the more difficult quests, dungeon runs and raids. Players can also participate in player versus player combat, either in large groups, small team matches, or individual skirmishes.
Over time, a number of additional features and improvements have been added to the game world, such as additional locations to explore, and seasonal and periodic events such as Halloween, Midsummer and weekly fishing competitions. Among the newer features added are a pet battle system akin to Pokémon, where players can collect pets all over the game world and battle with them and garrisons, which is a player-controlled area where players recruit non-player characters (NPC) to carry out quests to earn players or the NPCs items. Players can also modify their in-game experience through the use of third-party modifications such as macros and add-ons. Any software that can modify game mechanics (such as Glider) is against the terms of use.
Characters
To start, players select a game realm or server to play on. Each realm is in one of four different categories, depending on which set of combat rules it uses. These can be either where players are mainly focused on defeating monsters and completing quests, and player versus player combat is not permitted unless inside opposing cities, (player versus environment or PVE), or where open combat between players is permitted (player versus player or PvP). There are also dedicated roleplay (or RP) versions of both these types, where players are encouraged to control their character as if they were an inhabitant of a fantasy world. Realms are also categorised by the language players are encouraged to use, offering in-game support in that language. Players are able to transfer their established characters between realms in the same territory (North America, Europe, etc.) for a fee. As of patch 8.1.5, a player may create a maximum number of fifty characters per account on any realm.
Once a player has selected a realm, an option to create a character is available. A player can select one of two opposing factions to place their character in: the Horde or the Alliance. Characters can only communicate and group with other characters of the same faction. Each faction has seven (including the Pandaren, that are neutral at the beginning) races to choose from. Race determines the character's appearance, starting location, and initial skill set, called "racial traits". The Alliance currently consists of humans, night elves, dwarves, gnomes, draenei and worgen; the Horde currently consists of orcs, tauren, Forsaken, trolls, blood elves and goblins. The draenei and blood elves were added as part of the Burning Crusade expansion. Worgen and goblins were added for the Alliance and Horde respectively in the following expansion pack, Cataclysm. In Mists of Pandaria, the pandaren were added as World of Warcraft's first ever "neutral" race. At the conclusion of the beginner zone quests for pandaren (around level 12), the player must choose to permanently join either the Alliance or the Horde. As of Battle for Azeroth there are ten additional allied races for players to use, which are generally variants of existing races with unique racials and themes. Further options to customize the appearance, such as hairstyles, skin tones, etc. are also available. Once set, the face and skin tone are not able to be changed; however the hair style, color, and other decorations, such as earrings and facial hair, can be changed by visiting barbershops within capital cities. The entire appearance of a character (including face, skin tone, gender) can be changed via Blizzard's paid character re-customization service - however, this is soon to change in the upcoming Shadowlands expansion which completely removes the paid re-costumization service and incorporates it into the barbershops for free.
Depending on the race chosen and the expansions installed, a player then has five to eight of the game's thirteen character classes to choose from. The mechanics of each class vary, with some geared towards melee combat, while others are more suited to attacking from range or casting spells. The game has three roles, DPS (damage dealer), tank and healer; a member of any class can be customized for the DPS role, while members of some classes, known as hybrids, can also be customized as healers, tanks or any of the three roles. Currently available classes are: druids, death knight, demon hunters, hunters, mages, monks, paladins, priests, rogues, shamans, warlocks and warriors. Originally, paladins were available only to Alliance races and shamans were only available to Horde races, but both classes were made available to both sides in The Burning Crusade. The death knight, introduced in Wrath of the Lich King, is a hero class, with the characters beginning at level 55 (roughly mid-way to a maximum level), already equipped with powerful gear. Creation of a death knight required the player to already have at least one level 55 character on their account, since Legion this is no longer the case. The demon hunter, introduced in Legion, is another hero class that requires the player to have a level 70 character. Once a player has one, the player is permitted to create a demon hunter that starts at level 98.
While a character can be played on its own, players can also group up with others in order to tackle more challenging content. In this way, character classes are used in specific roles within a group. Players are also able to customize their character through the use of talents, which are further abilities related to their character class.
Characters are also able to learn two primary professions from ten options. These can be gathering professions, such as mining, herbalism or animal skinning. Characters can also choose from gear crafting professions, such as blacksmithing or leatherworking, or item enhancement professions such as enchanting or jewelcrafting. Professions are not directly linked to a character's class (e.g., warriors can be alchemists, mages can be skinners, etc.). However, some skills available to certain classes (e.g., the ability to track animals) are useful to certain professions. Characters can also learn all secondary professions: cooking, fishing, first aid and archaeology. In the Burning Crusade expansion, additional profession specialisations were added, allowing a character to gain new restricted techniques such as an alchemist mastering potions, elixirs, or transmutations. In the Cataclysm expansion, the secondary profession of archaeology was added which allows players to dig up and recover artifacts from all over the game.
As well as banding together to form groups, players can also band together to form a guild. These organizations allow players several benefits, such as easier communication through a shared chat channel and an identifying guild name and tabard. Guild members can also be given access to a central pool of resources known as a guild bank. Guilds can also make use of an in-game calendar, allowing guild members to view scheduled events, and respond to them with whether they can attend or not. This calendar can also be accessed without need to log into the game, using the Armory feature. Guild members that accomplish goals together gain guild experience and advance the level of their guild, granting guild members various benefits.
Setting
In a change from the previous Warcraft games produced by Blizzard, World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) where thousands of players can interact with each other. Despite this change, the game draws many similarities with its predecessors. These include using the same setting of the world of Azeroth as well as following a similar art direction. In common with many MMORPGs, World of Warcraft requires players to pay for a subscription, usually either by credit card or by buying a card from a retailer to redeem for a predetermined amount of subscription time; in addition, game time may be acquired from using in-game gold to buy a WoW Token.
World of Warcraft takes place in a 3D-representation of the Warcraft universe that players can interact with through their characters. The game features five continents on the world of Azeroth, as well as the realm of Outland that was added in the expansion The Burning Crusade. Warlords Of Draenor introduced the realm of Draenor, an altered past of Outland. The second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, added a third continent, Northrend . to Azeroth, and in Mists of Pandaria a fourth continent, Pandaria, was added. In Legion, they introduce the Broken Isles. With the Battle for Azeroth expansion came 2 new continents, Kul Tiras (mainly for Alliance) and Zandalar (mainly for the Horde). In this game world, players use their characters to explore locations, defeat creatures and complete quests. By doing this, characters gain experience points. After a set number of experience points have been gained, a character gains a level, giving new skills or abilities and making it possible to explore new areas and attempt new quests. As a player explores new locations, a number of transport shortcuts become available. Players can discover 'flight masters' in newly discovered locations and then use those NPCs in order to fly to previously discovered locations in other parts of the world. Players can also use facilities such as boats and zeppelins in order to move from one of the continents on Azeroth to the other. Players can communicate with each other using text-based chat, separated into different channels for ease of use. When a player instructs their character to yell or say something, a chat bubble appears above their head containing the spoken words in a similar way to a comic book image.
A number of facilities are available to characters when in towns and cities. In each major city, characters can access a bank in order to deposit items, such as treasure or crafted items. Each bank is unique to that character, with players able to purchase additional storage space through in-game currency. An addition in the Burning Crusade expansion was the concept of guild banks, allowing members of the same guild to contribute items, resources and in-game currency to a central pool. In the major cities of Azeroth, 'Auction Houses' also exist as a way for characters to sell items to others in a similar way to online auction sites such as eBay. Finally, in almost every town and in every major city are mailboxes. A mailbox can be used to collect items won at auction and also to send messages, items or in-game gold to other characters. A unique feature of this is the ability to send items requiring "cash on delivery", where the receiving character has to pay to accept the item, allowing for sale of items outside of the auction house.
Although the game world remains reasonably similar from day to day, changes have been made over time. Seasonal events that reflect on real world events such as Oktoberfest (as Brewfest), Halloween (as Hallow's End), Christmas (as Winter Veil), Children's Week, Easter (as Noblegarden) and Midsummer run for a period of a day or two up to several weeks. More regular events such as a fishing tournament have also been set up for players to take part in. Other changes include adding weather effects such as rain, snow and dust storms to areas, or redeveloping areas of the game in order to add new quests or to continue a particular storyline in the game. This can also include adding new dungeons to locations for the players to explore.
Questing
A large amount of World of Warcraft revolves around questing. These tasks or missions are usually available from non-player characters (NPCs). Quests usually reward the player with experience points and in-game money that the character can then spend on buying new skills and equipment. Some quests offer a selection of quest rewards, allowing the player to choose what would suit his or her character best. It is also through the use of quests that much of the game's story is told, with NPCs sometimes performing a small routine once a quest is handed in. Sometimes, quests of this nature are linked together by a common theme. Where one quest ends, another starts, forming a quest chain. A unique aspect of World of Warcraft is the use of a "rested bonus" system, increasing the rate that a character can gain experience points after the player has spent time away from the game.
Quests commonly involve killing a number of creatures, gathering a certain number of resources, finding a difficult to locate object, or delivering an item from one place to another. During this process, a character may get attacked and killed by a creature, becoming a ghost at a nearby graveyard. Characters can be resurrected by other characters that have the ability, or can self-resurrect by moving from the graveyard to the place where they died. If this location is unreachable, they can use a special NPC known as a spirit healer to resurrect at the graveyard, although Blizzard has had the foresight to automatically resurrect characters in some such cases. When a character dies the items being carried degrade, requiring in-game money and a specialist NPC to repair them. Items that degrade heavily can become unusable until they are repaired.
As well as gaining in-game money, items and experience points, many quests will also increase reputation with a faction. This may be one of the two main factions of Alliance or Horde or another non-allied faction. It can also be possible for a player to improve their character's reputation with a faction by completing further quests or killing certain types of creatures. Enhancing a character's reputation can gain access to rare items, unique abilities and profession-based patterns and plans, as well as lowering cost of items sold by NPCs belonging to that faction (such as superior gear items or special mounts).
Quest are divided into several categories and all offer a reward in itself:
Killing quests: the most common quest type. Involves killing a certain number or enemies, beasts or both.
Gathering quests: the second most common type. Involves collecting resources (or a combination of) to be processed and/or delivered to the recipient NPC.
Wanted quests: A quest requiring you to kill a more elite or rare enemy or a combination of them. They offer additional rewards due to their more challenging nature.
Announcement quests: given on information boards in the larger or capital cities. Usually, these require the player to travel to new regions and start the quest chains there.
Exploration quests: quests that require the player to, as the name suggests, scout or explore a region or area, or mark a territory.
Daily/weekly quests: quests that are repeatable on a daily or weekly basis. These usually involve quests intended to earn reputation with the specific faction(s).
Rescue quests: a less common quest, usually happens when doing other quests in the area. As the name suggests, the player is required to safely guide an NPC out of the area.
Loot quests: quests that are linked to certain items. Usually, these are linked to an item dropped in an instance or zone and grants a reward. The player can only do these once per character.
Invitation quests: similar loot quests, the player receives the quest from a looted item and it serves as a means of introduction into a faction or specific in-game events, such as the Brawlers' Guild or specific reward quests.
Quests are identified by either a ! (meaning a quest is available) or a ? (meaning a quest can be completed with that particular NPC).
The color indicates whether it is a low-level (dark yellow), on-level (bright yellow), challenging (reddish yellow) or not doable yet (red). Daily or weekly quests are blue.
Dungeons
Some of the harder challenges in World of Warcraft require players to group together to defeat them. These usually take place in dungeons or in separate zones, also known as instances, that a group of characters can enter together. The term comes from each group or party having a separate copy or instance of the dungeon, complete with their own enemies to defeat and their own treasure or rewards. This allows players to explore areas and defeat quests without other players outside the group interfering. Dungeons are spread over the game world and are designed for characters of varying progression. A "looking for group" option allows players to passively find other players interested in doing the same instance.
A typical dungeon will allow up to five characters to enter as part of a group. High end dungeons allow more players to group together and form a raid. These dungeons allow up to forty players to enter at a time in order to face some of the most difficult challenges. In the Burning Crusade and later expansions the most common group sizes are ten and twenty-five, based on the idea that these groups would be easier to fill and coordinate. As well as dungeon-based raid challenges, several creatures exist in the normal game environment that are designed for raids to attack.
As of Mists of Pandaria (MoP), there are the dungeons, scenarios, raids, battlegrounds and arenas that fall under this category.
- Dungeons exist as 'normal' and, in some cases, also come in a 'Heroic' or 'HC' version. While the mechanics in both versions are the same, the rewards and difficulty are different. In Warlords of Draenor (WoD), Mythic versions of dungeons were added that increase the rewards and difficulty more than in heroic.
- Scenarios are short, three-player instances, that involve a specific sequence of events that have to be completed. Unlike dungeons, the party members do not need to be of a specific type. In the later patches of MoP, Heroic versions were added that require the players to assemble their own team and walk to the portal in order to access them.
- Raids are the larger instances and usually involve a specific end of the expansion or final target. There can be more than one raid as several final targets may exist.
Players can raid in teams of 10 or 25 ("normal" or "heroic" mode) that are assembled manually, 25 for the "looking for raid" raids, as added per MoP patch 5.4 "Siege of Orgrimmar", players in normal or heroic mode can play in 'flexible' raids, allowing teams of minimum 10 and maximum 25, which was later increased to 30 in WoD. These raids become more difficult with each added player above 10. Also in patch 5.4, a Mythic version of the current raid was added that increases the rewards and difficulty more than in heroic and requires a 20 player raid made of players all on the same realm. All WoD and Legion raids include a Mythic version.
- Battlegrounds (BG) and rated BGs are small zoned instances that require players to engage a team of an equal number of the opposing faction in order to secure territory within the zone (à la "capture the flag), score resources or simply outwit the opposing team. Requires PvP to be enabled.
- Arenas are small areas that require players to have PvP enabled and consist of pre-assembled teams of 2, 3 or 5 players.
- Brawler's Guild is a permanent PvE version of an arena and allows players to hone their skills without requiring PvP or score ranking. They are challenging and each NPC opponent has his or her specific tactics in order of defeating an opponent or opponents.
- Proving Grounds are single player scenarios that test a player's ability in either the damage, tanking or healing role. These scenarios have levels, either in Bronze, Silver, Gold or Endless mode, with each difficulty unlocked by defeating the previous one. In Warlords, a silver medal from the proving grounds is required for the desired role in order to queue for random matchmaking for a heroic dungeon.
Player versus player
Players may choose to fight against others in player versus player combat. World of Warcraft contains a variety of mechanisms for this. First, some servers (labeled PvP) allow player versus player combat to take place almost anywhere in the game world outside of areas for new players. In these environments, members of opposing factions can attack each other at any time. In contrast, player versus environment (PvE) servers allow a player to choose to engage in combat against other players. On both server types, there are special areas of the world where free-for-all combat is permitted.
World of Warcraft also makes use of battlegrounds. These locations act in a similar way to dungeons or instances in that only a set number of characters can enter a single battleground, but additional copies of the battleground can be made to accommodate additional players. Each battleground has a set objective, such as capturing a flag or defeating an opposing general, that must be completed in order to win the battleground. Victory rewards the character with Honor Points that can be used to buy armor and weapons. Initially a ladder-based system was implemented, where the Honor Points accumulated in a week would affect that character's standing in the ladder, allowing them to purchase more powerful weapons and armor. This was changed following the release of the Burning Crusade expansion so that equipment became available to all, with Honor Points being used to exchange for pieces of equipment. In Legion instead of Honor Points for gear the player is given a box that possibly contains gear and artifact power.
Arenas are a further development for player versus player that were added in the Burning Crusade expansion. In these, a player's character can join a team in order to compete in arena matches. These matches are among a small number of characters (between 2 or 3 per side) in two teams. Participation in arena matches rewards the character with a number of Conquest Points, depending on the result of the match. Successful arena teams can use these points to buy armor and weapons of a higher quality than those available from battlegrounds. Blizzard and other organizations also run a number of arena-based tournaments, where teams can compete against each other for cash prizes.
In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, a new player versus player zone was introduced called Wintergrasp. For player versus environment realms, this zone differs in that players of the opposing faction are able to attack each other merely by entering the zone which flags them automatically for player versus player combat.
In Legion there were a number of changes to the PvP aspects of the game. There is a PvP honor system that unlocks PvP honor talents and there are separate abilities for use only in PvP that are not available in regular gameplay. Honor talents are abilities earned through increased levels in PvP and are activated while players engage in PvP. Once players hit maximum honor level, they can choose to earn a prestige level that resets the honor talents earned and gives cosmetic bonuses. In PvP combat, gear will be nullified and all bonuses related to gear will be deactivated, with the exception of artifact weapons and their related powers. Instead, the game will predetermine a set of stats configured to a player's specialization that can be modified for class balance purposes. However, a player's average item level will still factor in PvP; every point above item level 800 results in a 0.1% increase to a player's PvP stats.
Miscellaneous features
A number of features have been added to World of Warcraft, either prior to the original release or in one of the following content updates. From early in the game's development, Blizzard has allowed players to customize their game interface through the use of modifications, also known as mods or add-ons. These mods can help the player by automating simple tasks, grouping similar spells or abilities together and enhances the way information about the game environment is presented to the player. Mods are developed using the Lua and XML scripting languages, while images and models use the Targa and BLP image formats. Blizzard provides support to allow players to generate their own mods through the User Interface Customization Tool, although it does not provide support for any third-party mods. Some programs that operate alongside World of Warcraft, typically to automate repetitive tasks and allow the game to be played without input from the player, are against the game's terms of use. Use of these type of programs is considered an exploit and may lead to suspension or closure of a player's account.
References
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
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This article covers notable characters of the Tron franchise, including all of its various cinematic, literary, video game adaptations and sequels.
Development
For the first film, Richard Rickitt explains that to "produce the characters who inhabit the computer world, actors were dressed in costumes that were covered in black-and-white computer circuitry designs....With coloured light shining through the white areas of their costumes, the resulting characters appeared to glow as if lit from within....optical processes were used to create all of the film's computerized characters..." Frederick S. Clarke reported that Tron: Legacy would "combine live action with Computer-generated imagery (CGI)," adding that "several characters...will be completely digital..."
Tron
Kevin Flynn
Kevin Flynn is a former employee of the fictional software company ENCOM and the protagonist of the first film. He is played by Jeff Bridges.
At the start of the first film, he owns "Flynn's", a video arcade where he impresses his patrons with his skills at games that (unknown to them) he designed at ENCOM, but remains determined to find evidence that ENCOM VP Ed Dillinger plagiarised Flynn's work to advance his position within the company. Throughout most of the film, Flynn travels around the digital world, accompanying the eponymous character Tron; but later discovers that as a User, he commands the physical laws of the digital world which empowers him beyond the abilities of an ordinary program. Eventually, he enables Tron to destroy the Master Control Program shown to oppress the digital world, and upon return to the material world obtains the evidence necessary to expose Dillinger, and becomes ENCOM's CEO himself.
Clu
Clu (short for Codified Likeness Utility) is a hacking program created by Flynn, with his likeness, to expose Dillinger's plagiarism.
In the film, he is seen operating a tank in the search to uncover the stolen data but is captured by the Master Control Program and absorbed into it. The information gained from Clu is subsequently used against Flynn as he tries to escape the game grid on a light cycle.
Alan Bradley
Alan Bradley is a computer programming working partner of Kevin Flynn at ENCOM. He is portrayed by Bruce Boxleitner.
At the start of the first film, he creates the Tron program that monitors communications between the MCP and the real world but finds its progress confined. As a result, he assists Flynn in exposing Dillinger. In the film, Tron addresses Alan with the username 'Alan-One'.
Tron
Tron is a security program created by Alan, with his likeness, to monitor communications between the MCP and the real world. He is the main digital protagonist of the first film.
In the film, he is captured by the MCP and forced to play on the Game Grid, but freed by Flynn and instructed by Alan to shut down the MCP. His code number is "JA-307020".
Lora Baines
Lora Baines is research engineer at ENCOM, the ex-girlfriend of Kevin Flynn and then-current girlfriend of Alan Bradley. She is played by Cindy Morgan.
She works as one of the assistants of Walter Gibbs in the designing of the laser that teleports Kevin Flynn into the digital world and creates the Yori program that assists in the derezzing procedure.
Yori
Yori is an input/output program created by Baines, with her likeness, to take charge of the creation of digital simulations (such as the Solar Sailer) and assist with the de-rezzing procedure of the digitizing laser.
The romantic interest of Tron and Flynn, Yori is reunited with Tron after he rescues her from the clutches of the MCP and helps Tron and Flynn reach its core, where their combined efforts destroy the MCP and its factional programs.
Walter Gibbs
Walter Gibbs is the founder of ENCOM, where he continues to work at as a scientist along with Lora Baines, working on the teleporting laser. After voicing concerns about the heavy restriction to the company mainframe computer in a meeting with Ed Dillinger, Dillinger responds by threatening him with being dismissed. He is portrayed by Barnard Hughes.
Dumont
Dumont is a "guardian" program created by Dr. Gibbs, with his likeness, to protect the ENCOM mainframe's I/O Tower. He even has a similar closeness with Yori that Gibbs had with her user, Lora Baines.
Ed Dillinger
Ed Dillinger is the Senior Executive Vice President of ENCOM and the main antagonist of the first film. He is played by David Warner.
Dillinger was a worker in ENCOM before plagiarizing Kevin Flynn's original work, after which he becomes the company's senior executive. He contributes to the rise of the Master Control Program that controls the ENCOM mainframe and creates the Sark program that acts as the MCP's second-in-command. Dillinger authorizes the MCP to tighten security controls upon learning of Flynn's seeking evidence of the theft of his work, but when he starts questioning the MCP's intent to defy his plans of capturing other programs, the MCP threatens to expose Dillinger's misdeeds. He is defeated and indeed disgraced when the MCP is destroyed, yet also relieved that the MCP is no more.
His son Ed Dillinger, Jr. appears at the beginning of Tron: Legacy in a minor role, portrayed by an uncredited Cillian Murphy.
Sark
Commander Sark is a command program created by Dillinger, with his likeness, to serve as chief lieutenant of the MCP and the secondary digital antagonist of the first film.
He oversaw the training of new programs kidnapped and brought to the Game Grid by the MCP and was known to enter the games himself from time to time. He is destroyed by Tron near the end of the film. In the novelization, his code number is "ES-1117821".
Master Control Program
The Master Control Program (MCP), voiced by David Warner and also played by Barnard Hughes, is the main digital antagonist of the first film.
It is an artificial intelligence created by ENCOM founder Walter Gibbs and improved by Ed Dillinger that ruled Encom's mainframe computer. During the rule of the MCP, many programs are enslaved and forced to play games against its henchmen. To gain information and power, the MCP threatens to expose Dillinger's theft of Flynn's creations. Dillinger uses the MCP to administer the company's computer network (in effect an AI Superuser); but it, empowered by Dillinger, begins to steal data from other systems, and comes to desire control of external corporations and even governments. The MCP is ultimately destroyed by Flynn and Tron.
Before its destruction, the MCP ends most of its conversations with Dillinger with the computer programming phrase "End of line". In the sequel, Tron: Legacy, the digital world contains a nightclub called the "End of Line Club".
Roy Kleinberg
Roy Kleinberg is one of ENCOM's first computer programmers and coworker of Alan Bradley. He is played by Dan Shor.
He makes only a brief cameo at the start of the first film, where he creates the Ram program that makes connections between ENCOM and an unnamed insurance company and begins working in a cubicle next to Alan's. When Alan went to Ed Dillinger about being blocked from the system, Kleinberg asks if he could have some of his popcorn which, Alan allows. Kleinberg is credited in the film as "Popcorn Co-Worker".
Kleinberg also appears in the short film "The Next Day," which was included on the Blu-ray edition of Tron Legacy, and it's also in the film where his name is officially mentioned. He is the leader of the "Flynn Lives" movement, along with Alan Bradley.
Ram
Ram is an actuarial program created by Kleinberg, with his likeness, to "work for a big insurance company" before being captured by the MCP and forced to play on the Game Grid.
While involved in the games, Ram exceeds his original programming to become a proficient gamer, and expresses a fair amount of confidence in his abilities while between contests; but took pride in his work as an actuarial program, which he seemed to associate with humanitarian purposes. He is injured by a game tank after escaping the game grid with Flynn and Tron, and he dies from these injuries in the company of Flynn.
Crom
Crom is a timid and pudgy compound interest program, created by full branch managing savings and loan bank programmer Mr. Henderson, who was captured by the MCP and forced to play on the Game Grid. He is played by Peter Jurasik.
Crom and Flynn are forced to battle each other in the ring game. Flynn gains the upper hand but refuses to kill a defenseless Crom, twice defying Sark's command to do so. Sark then derezzes the piece of the playing field that Crom is hanging from, which sends the hapless program falling to his death.
Bit
The Bit is a representation of a bit (binary digit), and as such is only capable of providing yes and no (1,0) answers to any question, through which it managed to convey various emotions. The Bit appeared twice in the movie, once at the beginning of the movie as companion to Clu and later as a companion to Flynn himself, and was originally to have a more extensive role; but has only two minutes for scheduling reasons. Despite this, the co-creators of Max Headroom, in their book Creative Computer Graphics, called it "one of the most memorable characters in the film." At the time of the film's release, the character represented an innovative use of vector graphics and morphing.
Physically, the Bit was represented within the movie by a blue polyhedral shape that alternated between the compound of dodecahedron and icosahedron and the small triambic icosahedron (the first stellation of the icosahedron). When the Bit says the answer "yes", it briefly changes into a yellow octahedron and when it says "no" it changes into a red 35th stellation of an icosahedron; these resemble prismatic forms or "3-D versions" of the Latin letters 'O' and 'X', respectively.
Tron 2.0, Tron: Killer App, Tron: The Ghost in the Machine
The video game Tron 2.0 was a direct sequel to Tron but is now non-canon with the release of Tron: Legacy and its various related titles. The comic book Tron: The Ghost in the Machine further explores the Tron 2.0 characters and storyline.
Jet Bradley
Jet Bradley is the son of Alan Bradley and Lora Baines Bradley and the protagonist of the game Tron 2.0. Jet is digitized while searching for his missing father. Within the digital world, he is tasked with locating the Tron Legacy Code.
Jet is also the basis for the experimental program that is the central character of Tron: The Ghost in the Machine. This version of Jet is a digital backup of the original User, copied and stored within the system. Due to the complexities involved in making a copy of a human being, the program version of Jet is corrupted and split into three separate aspects. Eventually, all aspects of the program are united and given the choice to ascend from the digital world into the real world.
Mercury
Mercury is a female humanoid computer program. She is voiced by Rebecca Romijn. She is known within the computer world as a champion lightcycle racer but also shows some combat skills during the course of the game. She returns in Tron: The Ghost in the Machine as one of the leaders of the resistance against the red version of the program Jet, who is masquerading as the MCP.
Ma3a
Ma3a (short for Math Assistant 3 Audio) is a female computer program. She is voiced by Cindy Morgan. Unlike most other programs in the computer world, Ma3a is shaped like a sphere. When she was originally improved from Yori by Lora Baines in March 1988, she was known as Ma1a (short for Math Assistant 1 Audio), followed by Ma2a (short for Math Assistant 2 Audio) in June 1996 and Ma3a in 2003. Ma3a carries many of Lora's personality traits and even sounds like her (Cindy Morgan also played Yori in TRON). Some ENCOM employees have come to believe that part of Lora was digitized into Ma3a's code in the midst of the 1994 digitizing accident that resulted in Lora's death. In March 2003, Alan Bradley was given the "Digital Pal" award for Ma3a.
Thorne
J.D. Thorne was an executive from fCon who was improperly digitized into the computer and became corrupted, spreading like a virus throughout the system. Corrupted programs that follow Thorne as "The Master User" are called Z-Lots (pronounced "zealots"). Thorne is derezzed after a battle with the Kernel. Before he dies, he passes along vital information on fCon to Jet Bradley.
The Kernel
The Kernel is a security program commanding the system's ICPs. He was destroyed by Jet Bradley during a battle with the corrupted user Thorne.
Byte
The Byte is similar to the Bit in visual design and also speaks in a modulated voice. Unlike the Bit, the Byte is able to speak in full English sentences.
Data Wraiths
Data Wraiths are digitizable, elite hacker users that were employed by fCon to create havoc in computer systems around the world, steal top-secret data, and destroying the databases of fCon's competitors. When they derez in the computer world they are kicked out of the computer and return to their original human form, unconscious.
Seth Crown, Eva Popoff, and Esmond Baza
Seth Crown, Eva Popoff, and Esmond Baza are three fCon executives who attempted to transfer themselves into the computer world unaware that the correction algorithms necessary for proper transfer had been disabled. Without the algorithms, the digitization process went awry and the three executives were merged into one horrible monstrosity. After being defeated and pushed out of the digitizing stream by Jet (both for his safety and theirs, as their corrupted state would have killed them in the real world), they are stored in a hard drive so Alan can fix their code.
Tron: Legacy, Tron: Betrayal, Tron: Uprising and Tron: Evolution
Tron: Legacy, its comic book tie-in Tron: Betrayal, the animated television prequel Tron: Uprising and the video game tie-in Tron: Evolution are all direct sequels to Tron. Several characters appear in all four pieces of the franchise while others are specific to one component. All four parts establish a specific time line of the Tron universe.
Sam Flynn
Samuel "Sam" Flynn is the son of Kevin Flynn who is a controlling shareholder at ENCOM and the protagonist of Tron: Legacy, played by Garrett Hedlund and voiced in the video games by Ross Thomas.
After 20 years of his father's absence, Sam is lured onto the Grid, where he reunites with his father and catalyzes the action of the second film, culminating in the destruction of Clu 2. Deciding to take responsibility of ENCOM, he names Alan the Chairman of the Board and takes Quorra to see her first sunrise.
Quorra
Quorra is a skilled warrior and the last remaining member of a group of 'isomorphic algorithms' destroyed by Clu 2, played by Olivia Wilde and voiced in video games by Erin Cottrell.
In the second film, she is a confidante to Kevin Flynn, who saved her from Clu 2's purge of the ISOs. Anxious to experience the outside world, Quorra accompanies Sam to escape the grid and enter the real world; both her name and her story-arc appear to relate to the Greek myth of Persephone."
Clu 2
Clu 2 (short for Clu 2.0) is an updated version of Clu created by Kevin Flynn to oversee the development of the Grid and the main antagonist of Tron: Legacy. He is physically played by John Reardon, with Jeff Bridges lending his likeness and voice to the character.
Programmed with the command of creating a "perfect system", Clu 2 grew to resent Flynn – particularly, his fondness for the "imperfect", spontaneously-generated Isos, or "isomorphic algorithms". Clu 2 later betrayed Flynn and Tron to seize total control of the Grid, and then enacted genocide upon the Isos, and forced Flynn into hiding for twenty years.
Over this period, Clu 2 kept the Grid under his own control, reprogramming his opponents as soldiers for his own army, led by a reprogrammed Tron under the name 'Rinzler'. He continued to seek Flynn for his "identity disc", whose contents would allow Clu 2 to cross into the real world; and later lured Flynn's son Sam onto the Grid. After first trying to destroy him, Clu 2 uses Sam to draw out Flynn and obtains his identity disc. He is destroyed after a long series of struggles, at whose end Flynn 'reintegrates' Clu 2 into himself, apparently destroying them both.
ISOs
The ISOs (short for Isomorphic algorithms) are a race of programs that spontaneously arose on the Grid. Clu 2 saw them as an obstacle to his creation of a perfect system whilst Kevin Flynn saw them as the next stage of evolution; wherefore Clu 2 betrayed Flynn and destroyed most of the ISOs. The last remaining ISO is Quorra, saved by Flynn and sent to the real world with Sam.
Castor/Zuse
Castor is a flamboyant supermodel program and the owner of the End of Line club located inside the tallest tower on the Grid, played by Michael Sheen.
When originally named "Zuse", he was an ally of Flynn's and the ISOs' under his former name, but he betrays Sam and Quorra to bargain with Clu 2; he wishes to control the Grid once Clu 2 leaves for the real world. However, though Clu 2 seems to agree to the bargain, he traps Castor in his club, setting off explosions that kill him and his associate Gem.
Zuse is most likely named after Konrad Zuse, whose Z3 was the first automatic programmable digital computer constructed, in 1941.
Rinzler/Tron
Rinzler is a security program that serves as Clu 2's right-hand man, played by Anis Cheurfa, a well-known martial-arts performer cast for his abilities, stunts, and acrobatic talents, with Bruce Boxleitner lending his voice and likeness for the character.
Considered a master warrior, he uses two identity discs in combat and displays advanced acrobatic talent. The two-disc DVD edition of the original Tron revealed that in the late 1970s, Lisberger Studios had produced an early demo animation showing the character 'Tron' similarly armed with two "exploding discs", (see Tron Origins). Later in Tron: Legacy, it is revealed that Rinzler is a re-purposed form of the version update of Tron known as Tron 2 (short for Tron 2.0). Though it appears in Legacy that Tron was defeated in the initial strike of Clu 2's coup, Tron: Uprising reveals that he initially escaped capture, at the cost of severe injury, and served as a mentor to the program Beck in inciting insurrection against Clu 2's new regime; it has yet to be shown at what point in the time between Uprising and Legacy that Tron was captured and repurposed. As Rinzler, he has several encounters with Sam Flynn throughout Legacy, culminating in an aerial pursuit, during which he remembers his past identity and turns against Clu 2, who sends Rinzler plummeting into the Sea of Simulation. Rinzler's ultimate fate is left unknown, but as he sinks into the Sea, his red markings (indicating alliance to/control by Clu 2) fade to his original blue colors.
Rinzler is named after Lucasfilm Executive Editor, J.W. Rinzler, who has authored several books, including The Making of Star Wars, The Complete Making of Indiana Jones, and Making of The Empire Strikes Back. Director Joseph Kosinski chose the name during a working session with the writers when one of Rinzler's books happened to be on the table.
Jarvis
Jarvis is an administration program who serves as Clu 2's chief bureaucrat, played by James Frain.
While probably efficient in his function, his personality is shown to be sycophantic and cowardly. Jarvis attempts at every turn to impress Clu 2 and win approval. After Jarvis fails to prevent Sam Flynn from taking back his father's disc, Clu 2 derezzes him.
Bartik
Bartik is a basic program, leader of a rebel faction in TRON City, played by Conrad Coates.
In TRON: Uprising, he and his friend: Hopper joined a task force form by Paige to hunt down the renegade, after witnessing the workers standing up to Pavel, he and Hopper joined in also to defend the Renegade. In TRON Legacy, he is first seen speaking to Castor demanding an audience to Zuse, when the Black Guards attack the club, he started fighting them but was quickly derezzed.
Edward Dillinger Jr.
Edward Dillinger Jr. is the son of Ed Dillinger and lead programmer on the ENCOM operating system, played by an uncredited Cillian Murphy.
He is seen attending an ENCOM board meeting at the beginning of Legacy. Edward Dillinger Jr. has earned a reputation for making the ENCOM operating system more secure and harder to copy than previous versions.
When Sam Flynn releases the software for free, Dillinger suggests that the company take credit and claim that it was a gift to their customers to defuse the situation.
Anon
Anon is the main protagonist of Tron: Evolution. He is a security program owned by Kevin Flynn to try to maintain order in the grid and to investigate conspiracies. He teamed with Quorra in trying to stop Clu 2 from taking over the grid but was derezzed saving her from falling debris.
Abraxas
Abraxas is the main antagonist of Tron: Evolution. He is voiced by John Glover. He was formerly an ISO named Jalen before he was re-purposed by Clu 2 as a computer virus to justify the purge of the other ISOs from the Grid.
Beck
Beck is a young vehicle maintenance program and the main protagonist of Tron: Uprising. He is voiced by Elijah Wood.
Through most of the series, he leads a revolution against Clu 2 and his armies from within the digital realm of The Grid. He is trained by Tron and looks to him as a mentor throughout his time as a games warrior. Beck eventually becomes as powerful as Tron and challenges the tyranny of Tesler and his oppressive forces.
Tesler
General Tesler is a command program that serves as one of Clu 2's generals and the main antagonist of Tron: Uprising. He is voiced by Lance Henriksen.
He is in charge of the forces occupying Argon City; Paige and Pavel report directly to him. He believes Tron is dead until Beck (taking on the mantle of Tron.) arrives, he calls him the "Renegade". Whenever Beck arrives to help the people of Argon, Tesler tries to stop him by any means. In a flashback, he recruited Paige into joining him when he claimed the ISOs derezzed her friends, in reality, he order her friends executed. Tesler has no problem derezzing his own men for either failing or reporting that the Renegade is Tron. Tesler has the ability to stressed-out his arms and derezzed anyone or anything with his hands, he's shown to dislike Dyson and fearing failure to Clu should the Renegade free Argon and the Grid.
Dyson
Dyson is Clu's highest-ranking officer, sent to spearhead the apprehension of the Renegade and one of the recurring antagonist of Tron: Uprising. He is voiced by John Glover.
He started out as a friend and member of Tron's security force. While trying to stop a riot between some programs and ISOs, Dyson got half his face derezzed, believing Flynn has betrayed the grid due to siding with ISOs, he later joined Clu and participated in his coup against Tron and Kevin Flynn. He also scarred Tron's face and have him brought to Clu, however, he was led to believed he was dead since the recognizer carrying him was sent shot down. He was then sent to Argon to deal with the Renegade, Tron sent Beck to captured him, but prove to be too clever. When Tron arrived to face him, Dyson believed he was the Renegade until Tron revealed himself to him, he was shocked to see him alive, try to offer him to join him, but Tron refused. Tron was fixing to derezzed him, but Tron decided to spare him for now, so he can deliver a message to Clu. This causes him to flee Argon and reported Tron's survival to Clu. When asking who else knows, he derezzes Clu's sentry and said: "Nobody, only us, Clu then advises to keep it that way.
Minor characters
Gem is a character in Tron: Legacy, played by Beau Garrett. She is a servant to Castor while ostensibly working for Clu 2. She is presumably destroyed by Clu 2 alongside Castor.
Able is a character in Tron: Uprising and is voiced by Reginald VelJohnson. Able runs Able's Garage, where Zed, Mara, and Beck all work and knows Tron. He is killed by Cyrus in "No Bounds" while freeing Zed and Mara.
Link is a character in Tron: Uprising, voiced by David Arquette. Link is a worker at Able's Garage and is also friends with Beck, Zed, and Mara.
Mara is a character in Tron: Uprising, voiced by Mandy Moore. A friend of Beck's at Able's Garage, Mara is attracted to The Renegade.
Paige is a character in Tron: Uprising and is voiced by Emmanuelle Chriqui. She is one of Tesler's field commanders. While hardened and dedicated, she is less antagonistic than Tesler and takes a personal interest in the new Tron.
Pavel is a character in Tron: Uprising, voiced by Paul Reubens. Sadistic and power-hungry, Pavel seeks to undermine Paige and General Tesler.
Zed is a character in Tron: Uprising, voiced by Nate Corddry. Zed is one of Beck's friends at Able's Garage and has a romantic interest in Mara.
References
CGI characters
Disney characters originating in film
Lists of Disney characters
Science fiction film characters
Characters
Fictional operating systems
Kingdom Hearts characters
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American International Pictures (AIP) is an American motion picture production label of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution company known for producing and releasing films from 1955 until 1980, a year after its acquisition by Filmways in 1979.
It was formed on April 2, 1954 as American Releasing Corporation (ARC) by former Realart Pictures Inc. sales manager James H. Nicholson and entertainment lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff and their first release was the 1953 UK documentary film Operation Malaya. It was dedicated to releasing low-budget films packaged as double features, primarily of interest to the teenagers of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
The company eventually became a part of Orion Pictures, which in turn, became a division of MGM. On October 7, 2020, four decades after the original closure, MGM revived AIP as a label for acquired films for digital and theatrical releases, with MGM overseeing across streaming platforms and United Artists Releasing handling theatrical distribution in North America.
AIP personnel
Nicholson and Arkoff served as executive producers while Roger Corman and Alex Gordon were the principal film producers and, sometimes, directors. Writer Charles B. Griffith wrote many of the early films, along with Arkoff's brother-in-law, Lou Rusoff, who later produced many of the films he had written. Other writers included Ray Russell, Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont. Floyd Crosby, A.S.C. famous for his camera work on a number of exotic documentaries and the Oscar winner, High Noon, was chief cinematographer. His innovative use of surreal color and odd lenses and angles gave AIP films a signature look. The early rubber monster suits and miniatures of Paul Blaisdell were used in AIP's science fiction films. The company also hired Les Baxter and Ronald Stein to compose many of its film scores.
In the 1950s, the company had a number of actors under contract, including John Ashley, Fay Spain and Steve Terrell.
Emphasis on teenagers
When many of ARC/AIP's first releases failed to earn a profit, Arkoff quizzed film exhibitors who told him of the value of the teenage market as adults were watching television. AIP stopped making Westerns with Arkoff explaining: "To compete with television westerns you have to have color, big stars and $2,000,000".
AIP was the first company to use focus groups, polling American teenagers about what they would like to see and using their responses to determine titles, stars, and story content. AIP would question their exhibitors (who often provided 20% of AIP's financing) what they thought of the success of a title, then would have a writer create a script for it. A sequence of tasks in a typical production involved creating a great title, getting an artist such as Albert Kallis who supervised all AIP artwork from 1955–73 to create a dynamic, eye-catching poster, then raising the cash, and finally writing and casting the film.
The ARKOFF formula
Samuel Z. Arkoff related his tried-and-true "ARKOFF formula" for producing a successful low-budget movie years later, during a 1980s talk show appearance. His ideas for a movie included:
Action (exciting, entertaining drama)
Revolution (novel or controversial themes and ideas)
Killing (a modicum of violence)
Oratory (notable dialogue and speeches)
Fantasy (acted-out fantasies common to the audience)
Fornication (sex appeal for young adults)
Later, the AIP publicity department devised a strategy called "the Peter Pan Syndrome":
a) a younger child will watch anything an older child will watch;
b) an older child will not watch anything a younger child will watch;
c) a girl will watch anything a boy will watch;
d) a boy will not watch anything a girl will watch;
therefore:
to catch your greatest audience you zero in on the 19-year-old male.
History
American Releasing Corporation
AIP began as the American Releasing Corporation, a new distribution company formed in 1954 by James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff.
Roger Corman
They were interested in distributing a car chase movie produced by Roger Corman for his Palo Alto Productions, The Fast and the Furious (1955). Corman had received offers from other companies for the film, but ARC offered to advance money to enable Corman to make two other films. Corman agreed, The Fast and the Furious performed well at the box office and the company was launched.
Corman's next two films for the company were a Western, Five Guns West (1955), which Corman directed, and a science fiction film, The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955). The title from the latter had come from Nicholson.
ARC also distributed the Western Outlaw Treasure (1955) starring Johnny Carpenter.
Alex Gordon
ARC got Corman to direct another Western and science fiction double bill Apache Woman (1955) and Day the World Ended (1955). Both scripts were written by Arkoff's brother-in-law Lou Rusoff, who would become the company's leading writer in its early days. Apache Woman was produced by Alex Gordon, an associate of Arkoff's, Day was produced by Corman. Both were made by Golden State Productions, ARC's production arm.
Normally, B movies were made for the second part of a bill and received a flat rate. As television was encroaching on the B movie market, Nicholson and Arkoff felt it would be more profitable to make two low budget films and distribute them together on a double feature. Nicholson came up with a title for a film to support Day the World Ended, The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955), but lacked the money to make both films. They split the costs with Dan and Jack Milner, film editors who wanted to get into production. The resulting double bill was very successful at the box office.
Gordon also produced The Oklahoma Woman (1955), a Western by Corman, made through Sunset Productions. It was put on a double feature with Female Jungle (1955), a film noir.
Other films released under the ARC banner include a British documentary Operation Malaya (1955) and Corman's Gunslinger (1956).
American International in the 1950s
Arkoff and Nicholson had always wanted to name their company "American International Pictures", but the name was unavailable. When the name became available, they changed over.
There were three main production arms at AIP in the late 1950s: Roger Corman, Alex Gordon and Lou Rusoff, and Herman Cohen. Arkoff and Nicholson would buy films from other filmmakers as well, and import films from outside America.
Roger Corman
Corman continued to be an important member of AIP (though he also worked for Allied Artists and his own Filmgroup company during this period). He had a big hit for the company with the science fiction film It Conquered the World (1956) from a script by Rusoff that was rewritten by Charles B. Griffith.
His films included Rock All Night (1956); Naked Paradise (1957), in which Arkoff had a small role; The Undead; Sorority Girl; The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957); Machine Gun Kelly with Charles Bronson; and Teenage Caveman (1958), with Robert Vaughn.
AIP also distributed films Corman helped finance films, such as Night of the Blood Beast, She Gods of Shark Reef and The Brain Eaters (all released in 1958).
Alex Gordon and Lou Rusoff
The other key producer for AIP was Alex Gordon who mostly made films though his Golden State Productions outfit, usually written by Lou Rusoff. He made Girls in Prison (1956), with director Edward L. Cahn who would become one of AIP's most prolific directors. AIP released it on a double bill with Hot Rod Girl (1956).
Cahn also directed the following for Gordon: The She-Creature (released as a double feature with It Conquered the World); Flesh and the Spur, the last Western made by AIP; Shake, Rattle & Rock!, a rock musical with Mike Connors; Runaway Daughters (1956); Voodoo Woman; Dragstrip Girl (1957), with John Ashley; Motorcycle Gang (1957), again with Ashley; Jet Attack and Submarine Seahawk (1958). Most of these were written by Rusoff and directed by Edward L. Cahn.
Gordon left AIP and Rusoff alone produced Hot Rod Gang (1958) and Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959).
Herman Cohen
Another key producer for AIP was Herman Cohen, who had a huge hit with I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957) starring Michael Landon). He followed it with I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Blood of Dracula (both also in 1957 as a double feature), How to Make a Monster (1958), The Headless Ghost and Horrors of the Black Museum (both in 1959).
Other producers
Other key collaborators who worked for AIP in the late 1950s included:
Norman T. Herman: Hot Rod Girl (1956)
Robert Gurney: Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957; released as a double feature with I Was a Teenage Werewolf), Reform School Girl (1957) and Terror from the Year 5000 (1958)
Bert I. Gordon: The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Attack of the Puppet People (1958), War of the Colossal Beast (1958; the sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man) and Earth vs. the Spider (1958)
Burt Topper: Hell Squad (1958), Tank Commandos (1959) and Diary of a High School Bride (1959)
Edward Bernds: High School Hellcats (1958).
Stanley Shpetne: The Bonnie Parker Story (1958) and Paratroop Command (1959).
Stanley Kallis: Operation Dames (1959) and Roadracers (1959).
Pickups
AIP would flesh out their distribution schedule by buying films made by outside producers. These included The Astounding She-Monster, the documentary Naked Africa, The Screaming Skull (1957), The Cool and the Crazy, Daddy-O, Dragstrip Riot and Tank Batallion (1958).
Anglo-Amalgamated
AIP developed a mutual relationship with Britain's Anglo-Amalgamated who would distribute AIP's product in the U.K. In return, AIP would distribute their films in the U.S., such as The Tommy Steele Story (1957) and Cat Girl (1957).
AIP also imported The White Huntress (1954, England), Pulgarcito (1958, Mexico) and The Sky Calls (1959, Russia).
Late 1950s crisis
AIP became a victim of its own success when other companies started copying its double feature strategy. Costs were rising and were not compensated by increased box office grosses. AIP shut down most of their production arms and focused on distributing films from Italy, while they decided what to do next.
AIP's 1960s output
The company moved into rented office space at the former Chaplin Studios.
Imports
In the late 1950s, AIP kept their company afloat by importing films from Italy. These included Sheba and the Gladiator (1959), Goliath and the Barbarians (1959) and Black Sunday (1960); the latter film proved to be one of the company's early successes.
There was also Atomic Agent (1959, France), The Angry Red Planet (1959, Denmark), Tiger of Bengal (1959) and The Indian Tomb (1960) from Fritz Lang in Germany, Portrait of a Sinner (1959, West Germany), The Professionals (1960, Great Britain), and Escape to Paradise (1960, the Philippines).
They also bought Why Must I Die? and The Jailbreakers (1960).
The Corman-Poe cycle
In the early 1960s, AIP gained some kudos by combining Roger Corman, Vincent Price and the stories of Edgar Allan Poe into a series of horror films, with scripts by Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, Ray Russell, R. Wright Campbell and Robert Towne.
The original idea, usually credited to Corman and Lou Rusoff, was to take Poe's story "The Fall of the House of Usher", which had both a high name-recognition value and the merit of being in the public domain, and thus royalty-free, and expand it into a feature film. Corman convinced the studio to give him a larger budget than the typical AIP film so he could film the movie in widescreen and color, and use it to create lavish sets as well.
The success of House of Usher led AIP to finance further films based on Poe's stories. The sets and special effects were often reused in subsequent movies (for example, the burning roof of the Usher mansion reappears in most of the other films as stock footage), making the series quite cost-effective. All the films in the series were directed by Roger Corman, and they all starred Price except The Premature Burial, which featured Ray Milland in the lead. It was originally produced for another studio, but AIP acquired the rights to it.
As the series progressed, Corman made attempts to change the formula. Later films added more humor to the stories, especially The Raven, which takes Poe's poem as an inspiration and develops it into an all-out farce starring Price, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre; Karloff had starred in a 1935 film with the same title. Corman also adapted H. P. Lovecraft's short novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward in an attempt to get away from Poe, but AIP changed the title to that of an obscure Poe poem, The Haunted Palace, and marketed it as yet another movie in the series. The last two films in the series, The Masque of the Red Death and The Tomb of Ligeia, were filmed in England with an unusually long schedule for Corman and AIP.
Although Corman and Rusoff are generally credited with coming up with the idea for the Poe series, in an interview on the Anchor Bay DVD of Mario Bava's Black Sabbath, Mark Damon claims that he first suggested the idea to Corman. Damon also says that Corman let him direct The Pit and the Pendulum uncredited. Corman's commentary for Pit mentions nothing of this and all existing production stills of the film show Corman directing.
List of Corman-Poe films
During the early 1960s AIP concentrated on horror films inspired by the Poe cycle. Of eight films, seven feature stories that are actually based on the works of Poe.
House of Usher (1960) – based on the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher"
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) – based on the title of the short story of the same name
The Premature Burial (1962) – based on the short story of the same name
Tales of Terror (1962) – based on the short stories "Morella", "The Black Cat", "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"
The Raven (1963) – based on the poem of the same name
The Haunted Palace (1963) – based on H. P. Lovecraft's novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, using the title from Poe's 1839 poem
The Masque of the Red Death (1964) – based on the short story of the same name with another Poe short story, "Hop-Frog", used as a subplot
The Tomb of Ligeia (1964) – based on the short story "Ligeia"
Occasionally, Corman's 1963 film The Terror (produced immediately after The Raven) is recognized as being part of the Corman-Poe cycle, although the film's story and title are not based on any literary work of Poe.
In 1962, Arkoff said AIP was in a position similar to Columbia Pictures just before they made Submarine and Dirigible:
Before that they were on poverty row. Our better position will enable us to obtain more important writers, perhaps more important producers as well. We're a privately owned company at the moment but perhaps within two or three years we will become a public company.
Beach Party era
Beginning with 1963's Beach Party, AIP created a new genre of beach party films featuring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon. The original idea and the first script were Rusoff's. The highly successful and often imitated series ended in 1966 with the seventh film, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Many actors from the beach films also appeared in AIP's spy-spoofs, such as Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) and car racing films like Fireball 500 (1966) and Thunder Alley. During this time, AIP also produced or distributed most of Corman's horror films, such as X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes.
In 1966, the studio released The Wild Angels starring Peter Fonda, based loosely on the real-life exploits of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. This film ushered in AIP's most successful year and kicked off a subgenre of motorcycle gang films that lasted almost 10 years and included Devil's Angels, The Glory Stompers with Dennis Hopper, and The Born Losers—the film that introduced the Billy Jack character.
In 1968, AIP launched a $22 million film program. The psychedelic and hippie scenes of the late '60s were also exploited with films like The Trip, also with Fonda, Riot on Sunset Strip, Wild in the Streets, Maryjane, Gas-s-s-s and Psych-Out with Jack Nicholson. These "social protest" films were also highly successful. Horror movies also enjoyed a revival of popularity in the late 60s.
International American International
In the U.K., AIP struck up a film making partnership with Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy's Anglo-Amalgamated.
On a trip to Italy, Arkoff met Fulvio Lucisano, an Italian screenwriter and producer who eventually headed Italian International Film, which co-produced 25 films in Italy for AIP. Due to importing completed productions from other foreign countries being cheaper and more simplistic than producing their own in-house studio films in America, AIP had released many giallo, peplum, Eurospy and Macaroni Combat war films featuring many American stars and Italian stars such as the comedy team of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. However, AIP released only two Spaghetti Westerns (Massacre Time and God Forgives... I Don't!), perhaps recalling their failure with Westerns in the 1950s. Many of these films were edited, rewritten with different (dubbed English) dialogue, usually by Arkoff's nephew Ted Rusoff, and sometimes re-scored by Les Baxter.
AIP, through Henry G. Saperstein, is known for being the major U.S. distributor for Toho's Godzilla and Daiei's Gamera (kaiju) films of the '60s and '70s. AIP also distributed other Japanese science fiction films like Frankenstein Conquers the World, Monster from a Prehistoric Planet, The X from Outer Space and the South Korean production Yongary, Monster from the Deep, as well as two Japanese animated features from Toei Animation, Alakazam the Great and Jack and the Witch.
AIP also released a pair of Japanese spy thrillers re-dubbed as a comedy co-written by Woody Allen called What's Up Tiger Lily?.
The studio also released edited and English-dubbed versions of several Eastern Bloc science fiction films that had the dialogue rewritten for the American market and in some cases had additional scenes filmed with American and British actors. These include the Soviet film Planeta Bur (Planet of Storms) which was released by AIP in two different English-dubbed versions, as Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women and the highly regarded 1963 Czech science fiction film Ikarie XB-1, which was re-titled Voyage to the End of the Universe.
A few years later, AIP backed a British Poe film directed by Gordon Hessler: The Oblong Box (1969) based on the short story of the same name.
AIP-TV
In 1964, AIP became one of the last film studios to start its own television production company, American International Productions Television (a.k.a. American-International Television or AIP-TV). AIP-TV at first released many of their 1950s films to American television stations, then filmed unsuccessful television pilots for Beach Party and Sergeant Deadhead. The company then made several color sci-fi/horror television films by Larry Buchanan that were remakes of black-and-white AIP films, and sold packages of many English-dubbed European, Japanese and Mexican films (the last type were produced by K. Gordon Murray) and foreign-made live-action and animated TV series (including Prince Planet). The best known animated series AIP-TV distributed was Sinbad Jr. and his Magic Belt.
In order to allay the fears of cinema owners who feared current releases would soon end up being shown on television, AIP issued a statement retroactive to 1963 that the company would not release any of their films to television until five years after cinema release, unless the film had not made back its original negative costs. AIP-TV also filmed specials for promotion of AIP films, such as The Wild Weird World of Dr. Goldfoot (1965, ABC) and An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe (1972, syndication), both with Vincent Price.
In 1978, AIP-TV distributed the pop music series Twiggy's Jukebox. For several years around this time, AIP-TV also distributed several British TV series, including The Avengers, to U.S. stations.
AIP Records
AIP started their own record label, American International Records, in 1959 to release music used in their films. There were a number of soundtrack albums as well.
AIP Records was once distributed by MGM Records, the record label owned by AIP's successor-in-interest MGM.
Later years
In 1969, AIP went public to raise extra capital, issuing 300,000 shares.
In 1970, they entered into an agreement with Commonwealth United Entertainment to issue their films. In 1971 they released 31 films, their greatest number to date, and were seen as one of the most stable companies in Hollywood. Despite their exploitation roots, they did not concentrate on R- or X-rated filmmaking during this period.
Resignation of Nicholson
In 1972, James H. Nicholson resigned from AIP to set up his own production company working out of 20th Century Fox, called Academy Pictures Corporation; its only two releases were The Legend of Hell House and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. AIP bought out over 100,000 of Nicholson's shares. He died shortly thereafter of a cancerous brain tumor.
Arkoff alone
Arkoff continued on at AIP as president until the end of the decade. Heads of production during the 1970s included Larry Gordon and Jere Henshaw.
By the early 1970s, AIP felt the horror movie cycle was in decline and so switched to other genres, such as kung fu and gangsters. Notably, they produced some of that decade's blaxploitation films, like Blacula, and Foxy Brown. In a throwback to the old "studio days", the company is credited with making Pam Grier a household name, as the majority of her early '70s films were made under contract to American International.
In the mid- to late 1970s, AIP began to produce more mainstream films, such as Bunny O'Hare, Cooley High, The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday, The Amityville Horror, Love at First Bite, Meteor, Force 10 from Navarone, Shout at the Devil, The Island of Dr. Moreau and C.H.O.M.P.S. The increased spending on these projects, though they did make some money, contributed to the company's downfall. In the meantime, the studio imported and released its final foreign film, an Australian film, Mad Max, dubbed into American English.
James Nicholson's first wife Sylvia was still a major shareholder of the company. She sued AIP for mismanagement, but this was resolved in 1978 when AIP bought out her shares.
Merger with Filmways
By the late 1970s, filmmaking costs continued to rise, AIP's tactic of moving into bigger budgeted quality pictures was not paying off at the box office, and Arkoff began to think of merging the company. "We've been the Woolworths of the movie business but Woolworths is being out priced", said Arkoff. Talks began with Filmways, Incorporated. Negotiations stalled for a while, but resumed a number of months later. In 1979, AIP was sold to Filmways for $30 million and became a subsidiary production unit thereof, renamed Filmways Pictures in 1980.
Arkoff was unhappy with the direction of the company and resigned to set up his own production company, receiving a pay out worth $1.4 million.
AIP-TV was absorbed as the wholly owned program syndication arm of Filmways Television. Filmways was later bought by Orion Pictures Company in 1982 and Filmways was later renamed Orion Pictures Corporation, but retained the distribution arm. This allowed Orion to establish its own distribution, after utilizing Warner Bros. for distribution. Warner Bros. still has distribution rights to Orion films which were originally distributed by this company. Today, a majority of the AIP library is owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's subsidiary Orion Pictures Corporation. The American International name is still a registered trademark owned by MGM's Orion Pictures unit.
Relaunch
On October 7, 2020, it was announced that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer relaunched AIP as a label for films that the studio will acquire for digital and limited theatrical releases. Founder of Open Road Films, Eric Hohl was accepted as a president of the studio. MGM will oversee AIP's new films across all streaming platforms and the theatrical releases of them will be handled by its joint distribution venture United Artists Releasing. The first film from the relaunched AIP was Breaking News in Yuba County, directed by Tate Taylor and starring Allison Janney, which was released on February 12, 2021.
On May 17, 2021, technology company Amazon entered negotiations to acquire MGM and even made a bid for about $9 billion. The negotiations are made with Anchorage Capital Kevin Ulrich. On May 26, 2021, it was officially announced that MGM will be acquired by Amazon for $8.45 billion, subject to regulatory approvals and other routine closing conditions; with the studio continuing to operate as a label under the new parent company, which includes AIP and its titles.
Legacy
In 2005, less than four years after the death of Arkoff, filmmaker and Troublemaker Studios co-founder Robert Rodriguez founded a horror genre film and television company called Rodriguez International Pictures, which is a homage to the company.
Film library
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
2020s
Unproduced films
The following films were announced for production by AIP, but never made:
an adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's She (1958, dir. Roger Corman)
Even and the Dragon (1958, dir. Stanley Shpetner)
Take Me to Your Leader (1958) – a part-animated feature
Aladdin and the Giant (1959) – produced by Herman Cohen
In the Year 2889 (1959) – from the novel by Jules Verne
The Talking Dog (1959) – a comedy
When the Sleeper Wakes from the novel by H. G. Wells (1960–62) – Vincent Price was announced as a star in 1965
a color remake of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1961)
Genghis Khan (1960s, dir. Jacques Tourneur) – a Roadshow production with a $4.5 million budget
The Great Deluge – story of Noah's Ark
War of the Planets (1962) – a $2 million sci-fi epic starring Vincent Price and Boris Karloff based on a script by Harlan Ellison
Off on a Comet (1962) – a filming of Jules Verne's novel advertised in comic books
Stratofin (1962) based on Jules Verne's Master of the World
It's Alive (1963) with Peter Lorre, Harvey Lembeck and Elsa Lanchester
Something in the Walls (1963)
The Magnificent Leonardi (1963) – with Ray Milland
Sins of Babylon (1963)
Rumble (1963) with Avalon and Funicello from a book by Harlan Ellison about New York gangs
The Graveside Story (1964) – with Price, Karloff, Lorre and Elsa Lanchester
The Gold Bug (1964) with Price, Lorre and Lanchester
The Chase (circa 1965) – a silent comedy starring Buster Keaton
Malibu Madness (1965)
The Haunted Palace (1965)
Seven Footprints to Satan (1965)
The Jet Set or Jet Set Party (1964, dir. William Asher) – with Avalon and Funicello
Malibu Madness (1965)
Robin Hood Jones (1966, dir. William Asher) – a musical about Robin Hood starring Price, Avalon, Funicello and Susan Hart
Cruise Party (1966) – with Avalon and Dwayne Hickman
The Girl in the Glass Bikini (1966, dir. William Asher) – a sci-fi/comedy with Avalon, Funicello and Aron Kincaid
The Girl in the Glass Castle (1966) – a musical comedy with a $1 million budget
The Hatfields and the McCoys (1966) – a musical with Avalon and Funicello
It (1967) – based on Richard Matheson's story "Being"
The Golem (1967)
Minamata (2021)
Financial earnings
1970 – $22.7 million
1971 – $21.4 million
1972 – $24 million
1973 – $24.5 million – profit $744,000
1974 – $32.5 million – profit of $931,400
1975 – $48.2 million
1978 – $51.2 million – profit $1.8 million
Notes
References
Mark Thomas McGee, Faster and Furiouser: The Story of American International Pictures (McFarland & Company, 1995) .
Gary A. Smith, American International Pictures: The Golden Years, Bear Manor Media 2013
External links
American International Pictures archive curated by AIP historian Kliph Nesteroff
1954 establishments in California
1980 disestablishments in California
Companies based in Los Angeles
Defunct American film studios
Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles
Entertainment companies based in California
Film distributors of the United States
Film production companies of the United States
Filmways
Mass media companies established in 1954
Mass media companies disestablished in 1980
1979 mergers and acquisitions
Re-established companies
American companies established in 2020
Entertainment companies established in 2020
Mass media companies established in 2020
2020 establishments in California
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer subsidiaries
Exploitation films
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Comverse Technology, Inc., often referred to as simply Comverse, was a technology company located in Woodbury, New York in the United States, that developed and marketed telecommunications software. The company focused on providing value-added services to telecommunication service providers, in particular to mobile network operators. Comverse Technology had several wholly or partly owned subsidiaries. The name "Comverse" is a fusion of the words "communication" and "versatility".
Founded in 1982, the company went public on the Nasdaq Stock Market in 1986. Led by co-founder and CEO Jacob "Kobi" Alexander, the company originally specialized in centralized hardware/software systems for voice and fax messaging and sold them to telecommunications companies and other large enterprises. Much of its funding came from Israeli government subsidies and tax credits provided to research and development for hi-tech firms. By the mid-1990s, one of its most successful products allowed legal authorities and intelligence agencies to record and store data collected from intercepted communications. Starting in the late 1990s, Comverse's voice messaging software became its main product and the company grew rapidly with the surge in mobile phone use, passing the $1 billion mark in revenues. It established a formidable position in the worldwide mobile voicemail management market and sold a popular short message service center (SMSC) product. While headquartered in the US, most of the company's research and development was done in Israel; Comverse became one of the more visible success stories in Israel's hi-tech industry. It was one of Israel's largest employers of software engineers, was closely followed in the nation's business press, and was the first Israeli-associated company to join the S&P 500 index.
In 2006, Comverse was involved in an options backdating scandal. Alexander and two other top executives were charged in the US with multiple counts of conspiracy, fraud, money laundering and making false filings. Alexander fled the country to Namibia where he engaged in a prolonged fight against extradition. The scandal proved difficult for Comverse Technology to recover from; the company was delisted from Nasdaq, removed from the S&P 500, and spent the next several years consumed by the costly need to restate its financial reports for several years. Additionally affected by the financial crisis of 2008 and on and changes in the mobile phone market, the company underwent several rounds of large-scale layoffs and sold off parts of its business. By 2011 the company began a turnaround.
During 2012 and 2013, Comverse Technology divested itself of all its holdings and ceased to exist. The two independent companies that carried on its most well-known product lines were a newly independent Comverse, Inc. and Verint Systems. After further mergers Comverse, Inc. became Xura in 2015 and then Mavenir in 2017, while part of the Comverse business went to Amdocs in 2015.
Subsidiaries
Comverse Technology had multiple subsidiaries, many of which are still in business. Their activities at the time of their belonging to Comverse Technology were:
Comverse, also known as Comverse Network Systems or Comverse CNS, was a provider of software and systems enabling value-added services for voice, messaging, mobile Internet and mobile advertising; converged billing and active customer management; and IP communications. Comverse's solutions supported flexible deployment models, including in-network, hosted and managed services, and could run on circuit-switched, IP, IMS, and converged network environments. Comverse's customer base spanned more than 130 countries and covered over 500 communication service providers serving more than two billion subscribers. It typically provided some 70 percent of Comverse Technology's overall revenue. Comverse had 100 local offices in 40 countries, with its corporate headquarters located in Wakefield, Massachusetts, in the United States.
Verint Systems (which, from 1999 to 2002, was known as Comverse Infosys) was a provider of solutions for analysis of intercepted communications, digital video-focused security and surveillance, and analytics and business intelligence for the enterprise. Their products were aimed at enabling government and enterprises to make sense of the vast information they collected to meet performance and security goals. Verint solutions were used by more than 10,000 organizations in 150 countries. Verint was headquartered in Melville, New York, with offices worldwide and 2500 employees around the globe. By 2011, Verint was 52 percent owned by Comverse Technology.
Ulticom provided signaling solutions for wireless, wireline, and Internet communications. Ulticom's products were used by telecommunication equipment and service providers worldwide to deploy mobility, location, payment, switching, and messaging services. Ulticom was headquartered in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, with additional offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Comverse acquired Ulticom in 1996 and sold it in 2010.
Startel sold integrated voice, data and networking solutions for use in call centers worldwide. It was originally an independent company that was acquired by Comverse Technology in 1992. Startel was sold to financier Bill Robertshaw in the late 2000s and then became employee-owned in 2011.
Starhome provided roaming services for mobile network operators. The Starhome portfolio included international roaming services and core network solutions across various technologies, including intelligent networks and next-generation networks. It was fully owned by Comverse Technology until being sold to Fortissimo Capital in 2012 for $54 million.
ComSor was a venture capital operation, created as a subsidiary in partnership with Soros Fund Management, that invested in start-up companies directly and was active in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
History
Origins
The company's origins date to 1982 (or 1983, sources differ), when three Israelis, aspiring investment banker Jacob "Kobi" Alexander of Shearson Loeb Rhoades, engineer Boaz Misholi, and Alexander brother-in-law and Columbia University computer science professor Yechiam Yemini, got together and founded an Israeli start-up company, Efrat Future Technologies Ltd. In a meeting in New York, Misholi had the idea of building a business around centralized hardware systems to support voice and fax messaging and selling them to telecommunications companies and other large enterprises, who could then resell the voice and fax services to their customers. The three quickly returned to Israel and started the company, with the goal of securing Israeli government grants to fund the research and development work.
The early years of the company were difficult; in 1984, they founded Comverse in the United States, which became the parent company of Efrat. The name "Comverse" was chosen as a fusion of the words "communication" and "versatility".
In 1986 Comverse went public on the Nasdaq Stock Market with a $20 million valuation; the company used the money so gained as its final round of funding. The three founders had trouble working with each other, and Yemini divorced Alexander's sister; in 1987, Alexander was left with sole control of the company after the other two pulled out. The company was a penny stock on the edge of collapse.
Early successes
Under his lead, Alexander was credited with turning around Comverse's fortunes. In 1989, the Ascom Group made a $6 million direct investment in the company. In 1990, Comverse won a potentially $10 million contract, its largest yet, to deliver computers running voicemail and fax applications on West German cellular networks, beating out far larger corporations in the process. Deutsche Telekom became one of the company's biggest early customers. By 1991, the company had annual sales of $17 million and was selling a combined voice and fax mailbox system. Many of its early successes came from avoiding the huge telecommunications companies in the U.S. and instead focusing on selling to small- and medium-sized companies in the wireless market in Europe. The company also sought a variety of other markets, including developing countries such as Mexico and China for its Trilogue virtual telephone service. Gradually its product emphasis shifted more from hardware to software.
While headquartered in the U.S., nearly all its manufacturing was done in Israel, where it was able to substantially benefit from government subsidies and tax credits provided to research and development for hi-tech firms and industries by the Office of the Chief Scientist in the Ministry of Trade and Industry and by the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation. Many other Israeli companies were built by the same model, including another top software company, Mercury Interactive. During the 1990s, Comverse received at least 69 research and development grants from the OCS program.
In 1993, the company reported a 341 percent rise in profits on revenues in the $64 million range and was named a "Company to Watch" by Fortune magazine. However its stock plunged for a while in 1994 after a disappointing earnings report.
By 1995, Comverse was best known for its AudioDisk product, which was sold to overseas clients and allowed legal authorities and intelligence agencies to record and store data collected from wiretaps. Half the company's revenues at that point were from AudioDisk, and market analysts were recommending Comverse's stock.
Growth with wireless
Comverse became a market leader in voice messaging software and boomed during the late 1990s with the surge in mobile phone use. Much of its market focus was on wireless operators and overseas companies, and it gained a formidable position in the worldwide mobile voicemail management market. The growth coincided with SMS text messages becoming popular; the first big application for SMS was as a notification mechanism to tell a wireless subscriber that voicemail were stored in a voicemail box. Comverse expanded this application into a full-blown short message service center (SMSC), which receives, buffers, processes, and dispatches all SMS messages throughout a mobile network. Comverse branded and productised this as the Intelligent Short Message Service Center, or ISMSC. Typical of telecomm software, it ran on Unix-based platforms, such as UnixWare and later Linux. Comverse's ISMSC found success as a lower-price solution for lower-traffic networks, where it competed with Logica's Telepath solution. Other companies in the SMSC space included CMG and Openwave. ISMSC found considerable market penetration, exemplified by all six of Hong Kong's wireless carriers using it.
Comverse also became a participant in forming international wireless standards, such as in 2001 for the Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) markup language for XML to add voice capabilities to web-based applications. Additional industry standards groups in which Comverse has been active include the Open Mobile Alliance and TM Forum.
In addition to growing organically, Comverse Technology began acquiring other companies in both Israel and the U.S. It acquired Dale, Gesek, McWilliams, & Sheridan, later known as DGM&S Telecom, in 1996 and renamed it Ulticom in 1999. Comverse Technology acquired one of its key rivals, Boston Technology, for $843 million in stock in 1997. The acquisition gave Comverse entree into the large U.S. telecommunications market and meant Comverse would be supplying voice messaging systems to 12 of the world's top 20 carriers, and left it the third-largest supplier after Lucent and Northern Telecom. In 1999, as it saw record earnings, Comverse formed two wholly owned subsidiaries, Comverse Network Systems and Comverse Infosys, representing the telecommunications services platforms and products and the digital monitoring and recording products, respectively.
By 2000, its revenues were $1.2 billion and it had global operations. It continued to aggressively acquire small companies to fill out its technologies, as exemplified by the purchase of Loronix, Gaya Software, and Exalink, all within a 30-day period in 2000. The company's stock price rose from around $10 in late 1998 to over $120 in early 2001. The company was able to raise money several times on Nasdaq, including once for its Ulticom subsidiary and once (at a valuation of $600 million) shortly before the Dot-com bubble burst.
Comverse was one of the most prominent success stories in Israel's hi-tech industry, with both Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post referring to it as a flagship of that industry. As CEO, Alexander was sought out for meetings in Tel Aviv by world leaders such as Chinese President Jiang Zemin. He became known, as Bloomberg News later stated, as "the wizard of Israel's technology boom"; his oft-stated goal was for Comverse to do for Israel what Nokia had done for Finland. Comverse was one of the largest employers of software engineers in Israel and its stock was widely held among the Israeli investing public; as a consequence, the successes and failures of Comverse were always followed closely in the country's financial press. (Amdocs and Mercury Interactive were two other prominent Israeli companies in the enterprise software sector that were also closely followed.)
The company was also quintessentially Israeli in how it was run, with Comverse CEO Ze'ev Bregman in particular favoring a loose, relaxed system in which he knew all the employees and lines of management reporting were frequently bypassed. When Comverse Technology joined the S&P 500 index in 1999, it was the first Israeli-associated company ever to do so. It set the same mark when it joined the NASDAQ-100 index.
The early 2000s recession led to some struggles for Comverse Technology, with the global economic downturn leading to publicly announced profit warnings and a plunge in the stock price in July 2001. Over 3,000 jobs were cut during the period as part of several restructuring efforts.
The company still made some acquisitions, such as buying the instant messaging specialist Odigo for $20 million in 2002, after having previously purchased a 12 percent stake in it in 2001.
The image of Comverse Technology as Israel's blue-chip hi-tech stock suffered, and led to a slide in several other large Israeli technology firms. Comverse's management was criticized by analysts for having issued over-optimistic forecasts, although many other Israeli firms in the industry did even worse or failed completely during this period.
In addition, the European market for mobile voicemail management was already saturated by 2002 and the prepaid wireless market was in decline. In 2002, Comverse Infosys changed its name to Verint, partly to separate its more thriving business from Comverse's struggles, and staged a modestly successful IPO of a minority portion of its stock. By 2002, Comverse Technology had more than 5,000 employees across nearly 40 countries; due to the partial spinoffs and economic difficulties, revenues were down to $735 million.
In December 2001, Fox News reported that wiretapping equipment provided by Comverse Infosys to the U.S. government for electronic eavesdropping may have been vulnerable, as these systems allegedly had a back door through which the wiretaps could be intercepted by unauthorized parties. Fox News reporter Carl Cameron said there was no reason to believe the Israeli government was implicated, but that "a classified top-secret investigation is underway". A March 2002 story by Le Monde recapped the Fox report and concluded: "Comverse is suspected of having introduced into its systems of the 'catch gates' in order to 'intercept, record and store' these wire-taps. This hardware would render the 'listener' himself 'listened to'." Fox News did not pursue the allegations, and in the years since, there have been no legal or commercial actions of any type taken against Comverse by the FBI or any other branch of the US Government related to data access and security issues. While no real evidence has been presented against Comverse or Verint, the allegations have become a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists.
By 2005, the company had $959 million in sales and employed over 5,000 people, of whom about half were located in Israel. That country held most of the research and development workers, many of whom occupied the company's seven buildings on HaBarzel in the Ramat HaHayal district of Tel Aviv, while business and marketing operations were stationed in the company's Woodbury, New York headquarters.
Options backdating scandal
In 2006, Comverse Technology was involved in an options backdating scandal. In May of that year, company founder and CEO Jacob Alexander stepped down from his position. Alexander, finance chief David Kreinberg, and former senior general counsel William Sorin (both of whom had also stepped down) were charged in July 2006 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York with multiple counts of conspiracy, fraud, money laundering and making false filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), all related to alleged options backdating or other actions related to stock options between 1998 and 2006. The accusations against the three included the backdating of options to when Comverse stock had been trading at low prices, the use of fake names of option holders, and the creation of secret funds in which to hold the illicit gains. The SEC also filed civil charges against the three, for filing false annual and quarterly financial reports and proxy statements from 1991 to 2005.
By then, Alexander had fled the country and was classified a wanted fugitive in August 2006 by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. On 27 September 2006, he was arrested in Namibia after hiding in Windhoek with his family, where he had bought a house at a country club. If extradited to the US and convicted, he faced 25 years in prison.
He was released on bail and engaged in a long battle to avoid extradition to the US (in Namibia neither money laundering nor options backdating is a crime). Upon leaving the US he had transferred some $64 million to Israel, with most of that ending up in Namibia; another $50 million was blocked by the US government, which overall sought the forfeiture of $138 million of Alexander's assets. In April 2010, Alexander won a victory in the Supreme Court of Namibia that allowed him to continue to live and work there until the extradition request was ruled upon. In November 2010, Alexander agreed to pay the U.S. government $53.6 million to settle the SEC's case against him, with those monies being targeted to settle assorted lawsuits against Comverse by shareholders.
Of the other two executives, William Sorin pleaded guilty to criminal charges and was sentenced to a year in prison in 2007. David Kreinberg cooperated with prosecutors, repaid $2.4 million to the SEC, and in 2011 was sentenced to the "time served" of the minimal period he had originally been in custody. While over a hundred companies were investigated or charged with options backdating, Comverse was one of the most visible and was labeled by a pair of financial writers a "poster child for stock option fraud."
Continuing difficulties
Recovery from the scandal was difficult. The three charged executives, who had stayed on as consultants, were fired without severance pay, and the company said it would pursue legal action against them. The board of directors was expanded from five to ten, with all new ones being Americans rather than Israelis. A new CEO, Andre Dahan, came on board in April 2007 but the ongoing management crisis prevented the company from engaging in new innovation or entering new business areas. Despite the 2006-2007 economic climate being one of growth, layoffs occurred in mid-2007. Research analysts began speculating that the company might break up.
Because of the accounting issues from the option backdating, Comverse Technology was unable to file full or timely financial reports with the SEC. Its stock was delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market on 1 February 2007, and removed from the S&P 500 and NASDAQ-100 at the same time. The stock then traded on the Pink Sheets. In 2009, the SEC settled its case with Comverse Technology; the company would not be subject to penalty fines over the backdating matter, but would accept a permanent injunction against itself regarding any future violations of law regarding publicly traded companies. A settlement in a similar case against Ulticom was also reached. The failure to file timely financial reports put the company at risk of having its stock registration revoked; a process deciding this, involving the SEC and an Administrative Law Judge, was still active of 2011.
The financial crisis of 2008 and on caused further difficulties for Comverse Technology, with new layoffs occurring in October 2008, March 2009, and August 2009. The company reportedly lost considerable money in 2009, and the moves were typical of other hi-tech companies caught in the bad economic environment. Some of Comverse's products were still viewed highly; a Yankee Group survey ranked them first in the world in their type of billing services, and they were the worldwide market-share leaders in providing multimedia message service centers to wireless carriers. However, the rise in popularity of smartphones and of sending e-mail eroded the carrier market for some of Comverse's products and services. By 2009, the company's upper management was now largely American rather than Israeli, Dahan was under internal criticism, and there were frequent clashes regarding company culture.
In early 2010, Comverse Technology planned to release an annual report with full financial statements and return to being fully listed on Nasdaq, but anticipated more layoffs.
One piece of positive news in July 2010 was an $80 million investment by well-known entrepreneur George Soros.
However, the financial reports were not published and a public announcement was made in August 2010 that the company was short on cash and planning more layoffs. A precipitous drop of the stock price caused the market valuation of the company to fall below $1 billion, and the continued failure to file financial reports put the company at risk of having its stock being delisted completely. CEO Dahan said simply, "These are challenging times."
By August 2010, analysts were stating that Comverse Technology might have to break up by selling off its subsidiaries and spin off Comverse's own business units. Running low on cash, Comverse Technology engaged Goldman Sachs to explore such possibilities, with several large, well-known technology companies potentially interested in Comverse and some private equity firms possibly interested in Verint.
The company had some 4,000 employees, and continued having about half of them employed in Israel and most of the rest in the US and France. The continuing financial reporting problems had cost the company some $500 million in accountants' fees and related costs since 2006 and was the largest drain on its cash position.
The fact that senior management awarded itself bonuses in a time of various rounds of layoffs left employees feeling outraged. Comverse's restructuring also affected its 2006-acquired NetCentrex business unit in France, with layoffs or a shutdown possible. In October 2010, Comverse Technology agreed to sell its two-thirds ownership of its Ulticom subsidiary to a U.S. private equity firm for $90 million; the deal closed in December 2010. The company also sold part of its holdings in Verint, netting $80 million, and sold for $27 million land in the hi-tech area of Ra'anana, north of Tel Aviv, where it had been planning to build a new headquarters.
In October 2010, Comverse Technology finally published its restated financial reports for fiscal years 2005 through 2008. (The company's fiscal year N ran from February of year N to January of N+1.) They revealed that the company lost about $1 billion during that period. In February 2011, the company announced that due to this effort, its report for fiscal 2009 would be delayed, and also that it was restructuring into four independent business units and focusing much of its emphasis on billing systems for mobile carriers. Layoffs also resumed, with more possibly in the offing.
In March 2011, revenues for fiscal 2009 were announced at $1.58 billion, down from $1.72 billion two years previously, with an overall loss of $273.3 million. Dahan stepped down as CEO. During his tenure, Comverse Technology stock fell 68 percent in price and 2,000–2,500 employees were laid off; he made more than $20 million during that time and gained payments of some $5 million upon his departure. Overall, his stint as leader of the company was not regarded positively by some in the Israeli business press.
The new CEO was Charles Burdick, who had been non-executive chairman of the company. Burdick became the first American to head the company.
In April 2011, the company agreed to a $2.8 million settlement with the U.S. government over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that had taken place between 2003 and 2005. Payments of $536,000 had been made to the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization in order to obtain purchase orders and had been inaccurately reported as sales commissions in Comverse's accounting.
Hopes for recovery
During the first half of 2011, analysts such as Oppenheimer & Co., J.P. Morgan and Barclays said that with its accounting problems largely behind it, some restructuring done, and an improving cash balance and some revenue growth, Comverse Technology was well-positioned for ongoing operations or a possible sale. Zacks Investment Research predicted the company would again show a profit for fiscal year 2011. Comverse itself had gained tens of millions in new business, was hiring again in modest numbers, and was at about 4,000 employees, including some on an outsourcing basis.
In June 2011, results for fiscal 2010 were announced, finally bringing the company current with its annual audited reporting. Revenues rose to $1.63 billion while the company's net loss was halved to $132.3 million, and the cash position was now stated as being sufficient to meet foreseeable needs. Another positive sign for its recovery came when it was re-listed on NASDAQ in September 2011. In April 2012, results for fiscal 2011 were announced; revenues remained flat at $1.59 billion while the company's net loss decreased again, to $58.7 million.
Restructuring
In August 2012, a series of transactions were announced that would end Comverse Technology as a functioning entity, by making Comverse Network Systems an independent company once again known simply as Comverse, allowing Verint Systems to buy back Comverse Technology's majority stake, and selling off the other subsidiaries. Burdick said, "[The Verint] agreement, along with the planned spin-off of [Comverse Network Systems], will result in a tax efficient distribution to our shareholders and direct ownership in two independent, well-capitalized traded companies." Philippe Tartavull was named as the CEO of the newly independent Comverse. Results for fiscal year 2012 for the restructured Comverse, Inc. demonstrated a return to profitability, with a net income of $5.1 million.
These restructuring transactions were completed on 4 February 2013 and represented the effective liquidation of the Comverse Technology holding entity.
Further actions followed the end of Comverse Technology. During June 2015 Comverse divested its BSS business to Amdocs. In September 2015 after a merger this new Comverse entity changed its name to Xura, then after a further series of acquisitions and mergers in February 2017 it became part of Mavenir.
Industry recognition
Over the years, Comverse Technology won a number of awards within its industry, including:
2002 – Technology Marketing Corporation's Product of the Year (for Verint's Ultra IntelliMiner)
2004 – CMP Media's Product of the Year (for Verint's Ultra Intelligent Recording)
2004 – CDMA Development Group's Innovative Solutions Award (for Comverse's Multimedia Messaging Service Center)
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 – Frost and Sullivan's Telecom BSS Vendor of the Year award (for Comverse's business support systems in the Asia Pacific region)
2007 – International Engineering Consortium's Best VoIP Product or Service Award (for Comverse's Converged IPCentrex solution)
2007 – Technology Marketing Corporation's IMS Leadership Award (for Comverse's Converged Messaging Solution)
2007 – International Engineering Consortium's InfoVision Awards for Best New Product (for Comverse's Converged Billing Suite)
2007 – Technology Marketing Corporation's Internet Telephony Excellence Award (for Comverse's MyCall Converged Communications product)
2009, 2010 – Technology Marketing Corporation's Internet Telephony BSS/OSS Excellence Award (for Comverse's ONE Billing & Active Customer Management package)
2010 – Virgo Publishing's Excellence Award for Best Cost Management Implementation (for Comverse's Business Support System product)
Bibliography
References
External links
Former official Comverse Technology website
Software companies of Israel
Software companies based in New York (state)
Telecommunications companies of Israel
Computer companies established in 1982
Technology companies established in 1982
Companies disestablished in 2013
Companies based in Nassau County, New York
Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq
1982 establishments in Israel
Mergers and acquisitions of Israeli companies
Software companies of the United States
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The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached the U.S. state of Tennessee on March 5, 2020. As of March 1, 2021, there are 775,693 confirmed cases, 11,421 deaths, 750,755 recoveries, and 6,789,970 reported tests.
As of April 4, 2021, Tennessee ranks 12th by number of confirmed cases, 15th by number of deaths, and 20th by number of deaths per capita in the United States.
, Tennessee has administered 5,859,022 COVID-19 vaccine doses; 46.9% of the population has received at least one dose and 40.3% are fully vaccinated.
Timeline
March 2020
On March 5, the first case of COVID-19 is reported in Tennessee, in Williamson County. The patient was a 44-year-old adult man and resident of Williamson County who recently flew on a nonstop flight to Boston through Nashville's airport.
On March 12, Governor Bill Lee issues an executive order declaring a state of emergency until May 11.
On March 16, Nashville mayor John Cooper forces bars to close in Nashville and Davidson County and imposes limitations on restaurants. Governor Lee asks schools to close by March 20.
On March 19, Fiona Whelan Prine, wife and manager of country folk singer-songwriter John Prine announces that she has the coronavirus. On March 26, John is admitted to the hospital after suffering sudden onset of COVID-19 symptoms. On April 7, John dies, while Fiona Whelan Prine announces she has recovered.
On March 20, the first death is reported in Nashville.
On March 22, the University of Tennessee reports its first confirmed case of COVID-19. The case involves a staff member and is confirmed by the Knox County Health Department.
On March 23, Memphis mayor Jim Strickland and Shelby County mayor Lee Harris issue "stay at home" executive orders that take effect for Memphis and Shelby County the following day.
On March 26, Middle Tennessee State University confirms an on-campus student tested positive for COVID-19 and is being supported by MTSU Student Health Services.
On March 29, country music artist Joe Diffie dies in Nashville due to complications from the coronavirus, according to his publicist.
April 2020
On April 2, Governor Lee issued a "stay at home" executive order for the entire state, effective through April 14. On April 13, he extended the order through April 30. Two days later, Governor Lee recommended that all Tennessee schools close for the rest of the 2019–2020 school year.
On April 20, 150 inmates tested positive for COVID-19 at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex in Pikeville, a number that quickly rose as more tested positive over the next days.
On April 27, there were 576 positive cases at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex.
Lee confirmed the "stay at home" executive order would expire on April 30, and the majority of businesses would be able to reopen the following day, May 1.
May 2020
On May 1, around 1,000 inmates and staff tested positive for COVID-19 at the Trousdale Turner Correctional Center in Hartsville, leading to a significant jump in the state numbers for that day.
On May 7, a study conducted by Harvard's Global Health Institute in conjunction with NPR listed Tennessee as one of nine U.S. states that was doing enough testing to successfully control its coronavirus outbreak.
On May 10, Hancock County became the last county in the state without any confirmed cases of COVID-19 after Pickett County reported one case.
On May 15, the state of Tennessee announced Phase 2 of reopening, set to start May 22. This applied to 89 of Tennessee's 95 counties (all but Davidson, Hamilton, Knox, Madison, Shelby, and Sullivan). Knox County mayor Glenn Jacobs announced that Knoxville would follow the state's guidelines. Dollywood announced it planned to reopen "soon".
On May 19, every county in Tennessee was confirmed to have had COVID-19 after Hancock County reported a case.
On May 26, it was reported that all employees of a single farm in Rhea County (nearly 200 people) had tested positive.
June 2020
On June 19, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed House Resolution 340, introduced by James Van Huss, resolving that the "mainstream media has sensationalized the reporting on COVID-19 in the service of political agendas."
On June 22, the Westmore Church of God in Cleveland held a three-hour regional worship service for several hundred people. At least a dozen people attending the event tested positive.
On June 29, "at least 164 children living in facilities operated or licensed by the Tennessee Department of Children's Services have tested positive."
July 2020
On July 3, Governor Bill Lee signed an executive order giving authority to Tennessee's 89 non-metro counties with no locally operated health departments to enforce mask-wearing mandates in their counties.
On July 10, State Representative Kent Calfee, a Republican from Kingston became the first member of the Tennessee General Assembly to test positive for COVID-19.
On July 12, the pastor of the Westmore Church of God said that "the church should have taken masks more seriously as a precaution." The church had stopped tracking the number of confirmed cases in its congregation.
On July 17, three elderly church members who attended a June 21 service at the Westmore Church of God had died of Covid.
On July 23, there were 7,572 school-age children in Tennessee with a COVID-19 diagnosis. This number was thought to be an undercount of cases, as children are not routinely tested. Six counties in Middle Tennessee counties were in the top 10 for juvenile cases.
On July 29, Dr. Fauci warned that there were early signs of an impending outbreak in Tennessee, and that 93% of Tennessee's counties had a transmission rate “above the threshold.”
August 2020
On August 5, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that "fear of COVID-19" was not a valid excuse for Tennesseans to vote-by-mail in the coming November elections, countering the injunction of Nashville judge Ellen Lyle mandating a COVID-19 excuse as a reason to apply for a absentee ballot.
On August 10, a church in Athens closed after several church members tested positive.
On August 12, two nursing homes in Johnson City and Greeneville reported at least 78 cases.
On August 13, the University of Tennessee had 20 cases among students, 8 cases among staff, and 155 people self-isolating due to potential exposure.
On August 15, five Middle Tennessee counties had closed individual classrooms or entire schools due to individuals with symptoms or exposures.
On August 18, the University of Tennessee reported 75 active cases, and had traced one cluster to an off-campus party.
On August 31, there were 965 positive cases at the South Central Correctional Facility in Wayne County.
September 2020
On September 3, 1,144 people incarcerated at South Central Correctional Facility in Clifton had tested positive for the virus. The total number of deaths among people incarcerated in state prisons was 14. Another round of mass testing began for all state prisons. 312 Tennessee Department of Correction employees had tested positive for the virus, and one had died.
On September 9, University of Tennessee had 660 cases, and 990 students self-isolating or in quarantine. Students in Massey Hall were required to move out, so that their rooms could be reallocated to students requiring isolation.
On September 17, WZTV (Fox News Nashville) reported that the mayor of Nashville, John Cooper was shutting down and severely limiting the capacity of bars and restaurants during the July 4th weekend due to a mere 80 coronavirus cases linked to bars. As a comparison, more than 1,000 coronavirus cases in Nashville were linked to both construction and nursing homes. The mayor's office was falsely reported to have actively deceived the public on the number of coronavirus cases linked to bars and restaurants. Bar owners considered this particularly egregious as the "night life economy makes Nashville go" and these restrictions have caused Music City musicians, sound engineers, and bartenders to be "thrown out".
October 2020
On October 22, Williamson, Wilson, and Sumner Counties reinstated mandates requiring residents to wear masks in public.
November 2020
On November 17, the day after Moderna announced its coronavirus vaccine reduced the risk of coronavirus infection by 94.5 percent, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that Vanderbilt University Medical Center, among others, worked on this vaccine. Additionally, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that prominent country artist and Tennessee resident Dolly Parton helped fund research at VUMC for this vaccine. Parton said she donated $1 million because her friend, Dr. Naji Abumrad of VUMC, informed her that the hospital was making exciting advancements towards a coronavirus cure.
December 2020
In a December 20 televised speech, Governor Bill Lee emphasized his support for mask usage but rejected calls to impose a statewide mask mandate. He made the speech following reports that Tennessee was experiencing one of the country's worst new coronavirus case rates per person. He explained his viewpoint, saying, "Many think a statewide mask mandate would improve mask wearing, many think it would have the opposite effect...This has been a heavily politicized issue. Please do not get caught up in that and don't misunderstand my belief in local government on this issue. Masks work and I want every Tennessean to wear one." Governor Lee added new limits to indoor public gatherings via his new executive order announced during the same speech. Lee limited all indoor public gatherings to 10 people; religious services, weddings, and funerals excepted from this requirement. Additionally, Lee asked Tennesseans to avoid gathering for Christmas outside of homes and encouraged Tennessee businesses to allow employees to work remotely or require masks for employees.
On December 23, Governor Lee extended Tennessee counties' authority to mandate masks through February 27.
January 2021
On January 2, health officials in Hamilton County sent 75-year-old citizens home after waiting in line for four hours to receive the vaccine against COVID-19, and then they administered vaccines to politicitally-connected family and friends.
On January 29, the state of Tennessee announced it had partnered with Walmart to ensure that it is feasible for all people in Tennessee to get the coronavirus vaccine. Walmart will open at least 20 vaccination centers in its West Tennessee stores.
February 2021
On February 12, Walmart announced that its pharmacies would provide vaccination sites, emphasizing locations with many customers who have limited access to health care.
This included locations in Bristol, Johnson City, Kingsport, Knoxville, and Sevierville.
On February 23, the state of Tennessee announced at least 2,400 coronavirus vaccine doses were wasted by Shelby County officials due to an excessive vaccine inventory, poor record-keeping, no county-instituted process for managing soon-to-expire vaccines, and unusually poor winter weather (ice, snow, sleet, frigid temperatures, etc.) during the week of February 15. However, the winter weather was not entirely to blame, as the state claimed the issues went as far back as February 3. As a result, the state of Tennessee will not allow the Shelby County government to distribute vaccine supplies; instead, the Memphis city government, Memphis hospitals, and other clinics and pharmacies would take charge of vaccine distribution and administration.
On February 26, Governor Bill Lee extended Tennessee counties' authority to mandate masks through April 28. Several counties chose to lift mask mandates everywhere except governmental buildings, but continued to recommend masks.
Also on February 26, the state of Tennessee announced that all of Tennessee's nursing homes and "skilled nursing facilities" had received both doses of coronavirus vaccines as of February 24. The state also announced that vaccinations for these people are expected to be completed across the state during the week of February 26. In light of these announcements, the state stopped requiring nursing homes and "skilled nursing facilities" to follow stringent guidelines; however individual businesses may choose to continue to limit visitors and nursing homes that receive federal funds are still subject to federal rules.
March 2021
On March 12, the University of Tennessee, the state's flagship public university, announced it would fully reopen in the fall semester, including doing all on-campus activities at full capacity.
April 2021
On April 5, COVID-19 vaccine eligibility was extended to all adults statewide.
On April 27, Governor Lee declared the public health emergency over due to vaccine availability, and ended his emergency executive orders allowing 89 of Tennessee's 95 counties to impose mask mandates. Nashville, as part of Davidson County, announced it would remove most public health orders on May 14. However, the mask mandate would remain, as it is part of the six counties with the power to mandate masks.
May 2021
In May, after the FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine for use among adolescents, Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) medical director of vaccines and immunization Michelle Fiscus issued an informational memo with language from the TDH general counsel explaining the mature minor doctrine present under state case law, which ruled that minors over the age of 14 are mature enough to consent to medical procedures such as vaccination on their own. The memo was met with criticism from other state officials, who saw the memo as an attempt to "undermine parental authority" by implicating plans to vaccinate children without parental consent.
June 2021
In mid-June 2021 during a hearing of the state's Government Operations Committee, the TDH was accused by Republican lawmakers of "peer pressuring" teenagers and young adults to get the vaccine via outreach targeting the demographic, and lawmakers threatened to "dissolv[e] and reconstitut[e]" the TDH. State representative Scott Cepicky argued that "personally, I think it's reprehensible that you would do that, that you would do that to our youth.", and state senator Kerry Roberts stated that "It looks like the Department of Health is marketing to children and it looks like you’re advocating. Market to parents, don’t market to children. Period." Governor Lee later explained that the state planned to "continue to encourage folks to seek access, adults for their children and adults for themselves to make the choice, the personal choice for a vaccine."
July 2021
By July 2021, Tennessee had been afflicted by increasing cases of delta variant due to a large amount of hesitancy and anti-vaccination rhetoric.
On July 12, 2021, the state fired Fiscus from the TDH; she cited disputes over the aforementioned memo as the likely reasoning, and stated that Tennessee had also ceased all vaccine outreach specifically directed towards minors (including outreach unrelated to COVID-19). Fiscus told CNN that "It is just astounding to me how absolutely political and self-centered our elected people are here and how very little they care for the people of Tennessee". and that "public health should never, ever, ever be political." The state argued that Fiscus was fired due to her "failure to maintain good working relationships with members of her team, her lack of effective leadership, her lack of appropriate management, and unwillingness to consult with superiors and other internal stakeholders on [Vaccine Preventable Diseases and Immunization Program] projects."
On July 23, TDH commissioner Lisa Pierce stated that the state would (as per Lee's earlier statements) promote vaccination for minors via communications aimed towards parents and guardians.
On July 27, Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally and several other Republican state senators, including State Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson composed and signed a public letter recommending those Tennesseans "who do not have a religious objection or a legitimate medical issue" get vaccinated. The senators who signed also stated that "[u]nder no circumstances will the state of Tennessee require mandatory vaccines or vaccine passports for adults or children" and that vaccination is ultimately a personal choice.
Also on July 27, amid changes in CDC guidance recommending masks be worn by all students and faculty of schools regardless of whether they are fully vaccinated, Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn stated that as before, the decision to mandate masks will be left to local county and city school districts; Shelby County Schools plans to require masks, while nearby city and county school districts are choosing to make masks optional.
In an interview with WTVF aired July 28, Fiscus accused Governor Lee of refusing to authorize use of the single-dose Janssen vaccine in state health departments due to his religious views, citing claims that the vaccine was made using fetal tissue. The TDH states on its website that "Fetal tissue was not used to make [the Janssen vaccine], nor any other, COVID-19 vaccine. In developing its vaccine, [Janssen] used a fetal cell line, which no longer contains the original donor cells". The Governor's communications director issued a statement that Tennessee "has never limited or delayed the public's access to any of the approved COVID-19 vaccines, either in public health departments or the pharmacy partnerships that have been a part of vaccine distribution."
Government response
On March 5, Governor Bill Lee reported the state's first case: a man in his 40s in Williamson County who had recently traveled outside the state.
On March 12, Governor Lee issued Executive Order No. 14 to declare a State of Emergency until it expired on May 11. The order allows pharmacists to dispense an additional 30-day prescription provided it is to prevent the spread of the virus, allows for alternate COVID-19 testing sites provided that the Tennessee Medical Laboratory Board is notified, restricts an excessive price increase of items and services until March 27, suspends maximum size limitations for vehicles participating in preventing the spread of the virus, and gives the Tennessee Commissioner of Human Services the ability to waive child care requirements as needed.
On March 13, the Tennessee Supreme Court under Chief Justice Jeff Bivins issued a State of Emergency order applying to the Tennessee judicial branch. The order suspended in-person proceedings until March 31, and extended statutes of limitations and orders of protection that would expire on April 5 or before to April 6. Additionally, Governor Lee banned traveling by state employees for non-essential government business, while also banning visitors and tours in Nashville. The Tennessee General Assembly also banned the public from the legislative Cordell Hull Office complex with only members, staff, and media allowed.
On March 16, Nashville mayor John Cooper announced that bars would close across the county and imposed limitations on restaurants. On the same day, Lee asked schools to close by March 20; on April 15, he recommended they stay closed through the end of the school year.
On March 23, Memphis mayor Jim Strickland and Shelby County mayor Lee Harris issued executive orders to take effect 6:00 pm, March 24, requiring residents to remain at home unless they served essential services. The list of essential services was broad.
The state has gradually collected more information in its coronavirus reporting. Initially, Tennessee was unable to reveal the counties where infected victims lived. On March 10, the state government began reporting coronavirus cases by county, but it still did not have information regarding age and gender. Currently, age, gender, race, and county information is published daily. On March 31, the state government was able to reveal the number of negative cases in each county. Lee also signed an executive order allowing local governments to meet remotely after the legislature failed to do so.
On March 25, during Governor Lee's daily COVID-19 briefing, Military Commissioner Major General Jeff Holmes announced that 250 members of the Tennessee National Guard had been mobilized to assist in the state's response and were receiving training in Smyrna. Small teams of Guardsmen were dispersed across 35 counties to support coronavirus testing. Members of the Tennessee State Guard were activated to assist the National Guard's mission.
On April 2, Governor Lee announced that he would sign Executive Order No. 23, which would call for all residents to stay home through April 14, unless they were carrying out essential activities. On April 13, Lee extended the order to the end of the month, to align with President Trump's plans for businesses to reopen in early May.
The Tennessee Major Metros Economic Restart Task Force was established on April 16, composed of mayors representing Knoxville, Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga, as well as business and health leaders. The task force would plan resumption of business suspended due to COVID-19.
Governor Lee announced on April 20 that the 'Safer at Home' order would expire on April 30, and the majority of businesses would be able to reopen the following day, May 1.
On April 24, Governor Lee announced his reopening plan, applying to 89 of Tennessee's 95 counties. It did not apply to Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga — Tennessee's largest cities. Instead, Lee left reopening decisions to local leaders in those places. The guidelines allowed restaurants and retail stores to reopen on April 27 and 29, respectively. The state recommended that businesses should keep occupancy at 50% capacity and require employees to use cloth masks and gloves.
On April 30, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland announced that the city of Memphis and its surrounding county were ready to "slowly start opening our economy back up and get Memphians working again" on May 4. After a meeting of a "diverse group with ideological and political differences", it was determined that Memphis would not be able to reopen with most of the rest of the state. Memphis entered Phase 1 of reopening on May 4.
On May 7, Nashville mayor John Cooper announced that Nashville has a "passing grade" and would begin Phase 1 of reopening on May 11. This would bring Nashville into closer alignment with the rest of the state, where some businesses reopened with partial capacity on May 1.
On May 15, the Governor's Economic Recovery Group announced Phase 2 of reopening. In this phase, starting May 22, 89 of Tennessee's 95 counties (excluding the largest cities that determine their own timelines) would allow restaurants and retail to operate at full capacity with social distancing and not allowing groups of more than 10 people. Also "large non-contact attractions" such as theaters, amusement parks, water parks, racetracks, museums, and auditoriums would be allowed to reopen with social distancing. Knox County mayor Glenn Jacobs announced that Knoxville would follow the state's guidelines. Dollywood announced it planned to reopen "soon".
On July 22, the Oak Ridge City Council, passed a measure to send Governor Lee a resolution to give municipalities the ability to enforce mask mandates, regardless if the county that the municipality is in did not enforce a mandate itself.
On July 29, with schools reopening across the state, the state health department decided not to collect data on COVID-19 cases in schools, instead leaving the decision of whether to collect and share the data to the individual school districts.
Mask mandate enforcement
By July 16, after the Governor's July 3 executive order giving all Tennessee counties the power to mandate masks in public, Davidson, Dickson, Greene, Hamblen, Hamilton, Hancock, Hawkins, Knox, Madison, Montgomery, Robertson, Sevier, Shelby, Sullivan, Sumner, Washington, and Williamson counties required masks.
Meanwhile, Anderson, Bedford, Bledsoe, Blount, Bradley, Cheatham, Coffee, Franklin, Grainger, Grundy, Hickman, Marion, Marshall, Maury, McMinn, Meigs, Polk, Putnam, Rhea, Rutherford, Sesquatchie, and Wilson Counties announced they would not require masks. Several counties continue to recommend, but not require, masks and framed the mask issue as an issue of personal responsibility and "love and respect". Six of Tennessee's counties (Davidson, Hamilton, Knox, Madison, Shelby, Sullivan) have local health departments and already had the authority to issue mask mandates.
On October 30, Governor Bill Lee extended Tennessee counties' authority to issue mask mandates through December 29. Montgomery County (including Clarksville) and Sumner County extended their mask mandates that same day.
On November 16, News Channel 5 Nashville reported that 25 Tennessee counties with 66.3% of Tennessee's residents were requiring masks. These counties were: Carter, Davidson, Dyer, Greene, Hamblen, Hamilton, Hancock, Henry, Knox, Lake, Lauderdale, Madison, Montgomery, Robertson, Rutherford, Sevier, Shelby, Sullivan, Sumner, Unicoi, Warren, Washington, Weakley, Williamson, and Wilson Counties.
On November 18, Wayne County announced it would issue a mask mandate starting November 19 and ending December 29.
On December 23, Governor Lee extended Tennessee counties' authority to mandate masks through February 27. Sumner and Washington Counties extended their mask mandates that same day.
On December 29, News 8 Knoxville reported that Hamblen, Roane, and Sevier Counties were extending their mask mandates through February 27, while Grainger County was extending its mask mandate through January 31.
On January 1, 2021, WMC Action News 5 Memphis reported that Benton County issued a mask mandate that would be renewed weekly.
On February 20, 2021, WJHL reported that Washington, Carter, and Unicoi Counties were ending mask mandates in most places, but continued to recommend masks.
On February 27, 2021, Governor Bill Lee extended Tennessee counties' authority to mandate masks through April 28. Several counties, including Greene, Williamson, and Robertson, chose to lift mask mandates everywhere except governmental buildings, but continued to recommend masks.
Rutherford County chose to extend its mandate only through March 15. Montgomery County and Henry County chose to extend their mandates only through March 27.
Claiborne, Hamblen, and Sullivan Counties only chose to extend their mask mandates through March 31. Sevier County only chose to extend its mandate through April 15, and planned to permanently end the mask mandate at that time.
Dyer County
and Summer County elected to immediately extend their mandates all the way through April 28.
Governor Lee ended the mask mandate authority of 89 of Tennessee's 95 counties on April 27, 2021. He also requested the other 6 counties to end their mask mandates by the end of May.
Impact on sports
On March 12, the National Basketball Association announced the season would be suspended for 30 days, affecting the Memphis Grizzlies. In the National Hockey League, the season was suspended for an indefinite amount of time, affecting the Nashville Predators. The National Collegiate Athletic Association cancelled all winter and spring tournaments, most notably the Division I men's and women's basketball tournaments, affecting colleges and universities statewide. On March 16, the National Junior College Athletic Association also canceled the remainder of the winter seasons as well as the spring seasons.
On September 11, the Memphis Tigers suspended football operations after at least 20 people in the program tested positive.
On November 10, the Tennessee Volunteers' game against Texas A&M, scheduled for November 14, was postponed to December 12 due to coronavirus issues on the Texas A&M team.
On November 23, the annual Tennessee-Vanderbilt football rivalry, scheduled for November 28, was postponed after a spate of coronavirus-related cancellations in the SEC. The Vanderbilt Commodores were rescheduled to play against fellow SEC team Missouri, while the Tennessee Volunteers did not have a new game for that date.
On December 5, the MTSU Blue Raiders announced the cancellation of their final scheduled game of the 2020 college football season against the UAB Blazers due to coronavirus issues. The Murfreesboro school's team finished with a 3–6 record.
Testing sites
The Tennessee Department of Health provides information on testing locations by county level. According to the Tennessee Department of Health, "Locations will be added as available. For non-health department sites, individuals should call the assessment site prior to going in person. Many locations do a phone assessment to determine if an in-person assessment or test is needed. For health department sites, individuals should visit during the stated hours of operation."
Statistics
Rate of contagion, age ranges, and ethnicities
See also
Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States – for impact on the country
COVID-19 pandemic – for impact on other countries
References
External links
information from the Office of the Governor
Tennessee
coronavirus pandemic
coronavirus pandemic
Disasters in Tennessee
Health in Tennessee
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Bendy and the Ink Machine is an episodic first-person survival horror video game developed and published by Kindly Beast under the name of the game's in-universe animation studio Joey Drew Studios Inc. It was initially released to Game Jolt on February 10, 2017, as the first of five chapters, with a full release on October 27, 2018. The game was also released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on November 20, 2018, being published by Rooster Teeth Games, and for IOS and Android on December 21, 2018.
Inspired by the BioShock game series, the game is set in the fictional Joey Drew Studios. The player controls Henry Stein, a retired animator who receives a letter inviting him
back to his old workplace. Stein discovers a series of strange paranormal activities caused by the titular Ink Machine. In the game, players navigate through a first person perspective and need to complete certain tasks to proceed, such as combat, collecting objects or solving puzzles. Players can also find audio logs recorded by the studio's employees in order to understand the game's history.
Bendy and the Ink Machine was well-received upon its initial release. Praise centered on its vintage aesthetic and story, although its puzzles and combat mechanics were less popular. In the months following its release, the game quickly gained a large following from exposure on platforms like YouTube and Twitch, and eventually was approved through Steam Greenlight in mid-2017. Merchandise, as well as a mobile spin-off, was later introduced to further promote the game. Mike Mood, the game's programmer and co-creator, described the game as an "accidental success". Bendy and the Dark Revival, the next game in the series, is scheduled for released in 2022.
Gameplay
Bendy and the Ink Machine is a first person survival horror that resembles several cartoons in the late 1930s to 1940s. The player plays as Henry Stein, a retired animator who returns to his old workplace, Joey Drew Studios, and discovers that a machine has corrupted the entire studio and brought certain cartoon characters to life. The game mixes combat with puzzle mechanics. Players explore through a first-person view and have limited physical actions such as running and jumping. Different items can be collected, some of which are required to perform various tasks before proceeding. Cans of bacon soup can also be collected for achievements and to restore Henry's health if he is injured.
Combat is primarily focused around a variety of different melee-based weapons, such as an axe, pipe, plunger, wrench, or scythe. Additionally there are long-range weapons such as a tommy gun or bacon soup cans. In-game enemies have different strength levels and resilience to damage, forcing players to be tactical about keeping out of reach and striking when necessary. Failure to do so will result in a death. Henry can retreat inside Little Miracle Stations whenever enemies are nearby in order to recover or remain out of sight. If he takes too much damage, he can escape from the ink that consumes him and respawn at one of the numerous statues of Bendy that act as checkpoints. The player can save their progress by interacting with time card stations.
In addition, players can find numerous audio logs throughout the studio that give more details about the game's story, particularly concerning the fate of the studio and its employees, similar to the systems used in games such as BioShock. Some of these logs can be missed and require further exploration to uncover the secret areas they often reside In. At the final chapter, players unlock the Seeing Tool, which is a device used to view secret hidden messages that would be invisible without it. After completing it, players can also use it in the previous four chapters.
Plot
Chapter 1: Moving Pictures
In the year 1963, Henry Stein, co-founder and former animator at Joey Drew Studios is invited back to the studio by his former friend and business partner, Joey Drew. Upon arriving, Henry discovers the studio abandoned and dirtied up with ink splotches everywhere, as well as a mutilated copy of Boris the Wolf, one of the studio's characters. Henry discovers that the messy ink was caused by the Ink Machine, which was installed sometime after Henry left. Henry goes to fix and turn on the machine. After turning the machine on, Henry goes back to the machine, but is attacked by an ink creature known as Ink Bendy, who closely resembles the studio's mascot, Bendy. Henry tries to escape as the studio fills with ink. As Henry reaches the door, the floor under him gives way and he falls into the ink-filled lower levels. After draining the ink, Henry finds a room with coffins and a strange diagram on the floor. When he steps on it, he sees a vision of the Ink Machine, a wheelchair, and Ink Bendy, before passing out.
Chapter 2: The Old Song
Henry wakes up and searches for a way out. He eventually comes to the music department and discovers an exit at the bottom of some stairs, but the stairs are flooded and blocking the door. After battling ink creatures known as Searchers, Henry finds music director Sammy Lawrence's office and finds a pump switch inside that could drain the ink at the stairs, but his office is blocked by a massive ink leak. Henry finds two valves that lower the ink pressure, one in Sammy's sanctuary and one in the infirmary, being held hostage by the studio's lyricist Jack Fain, who has been turned into a Swollen Searcher. After stopping the leak, Henry drains the ink at the stairs. While approaching the stairs however, he is knocked out by an ink corrupted Sammy. After waking up, Sammy reveals he intends to sacrifice Henry to Ink Bendy, whom he worships as a deity, so that he can be free of the ink. As Sammy begins the sacrifice ritual, he is attacked by Ink Bendy and presumably killed. Henry breaks free and tries to escape, but is confronted by Ink Bendy. After a chase, Henry locks himself in a storage room. Venturing into the room, he realizes there is someone in the room and tells them to show themselves. Henry becomes shocked when the figure reveals himself as a fully intact Boris the Wolf.
Chapter 3: Rise and Fall
Henry befriends Boris, and the two leave Boris' safehouse to find another way out of the studio. They come across the toy department and find a back room full of merchandise for Alice Angel, the studio's lead female. Henry is then confronted by a twisted design of Alice Angel and she summons him to Level 9 of the studio. Henry and Boris reach Level 9, but are attacked by the Piper, a member of the Butcher Gang, minor antagonists of the cartoons. Inside Twisted Alice's lair, Henry and Boris discover multiple mutilated clones of Boris and the Butcher Gang. Henry finds Twisted Alice torturing a Piper and she orders him to fetch some items for her, in exchange for being allowed to escape the studio. Henry must fulfill Twisted Alice's tasks, all the while being hunted by Ink Bendy, Searchers, the Butcher Gang, and the Projectionist, an ink corrupted version of Norman Polk, the studio's projectionist. After fulfilling her needs, she sends him to the elevator where he can leave, but forces the elevator to fall after discovering Boris, who she wants as he is the most perfect Boris. The elevator crashes on Level S. Boris wakes Henry up, and he is forced to watch as Twisted Alice drags Boris away.
Chapter 4: Colossal Wonders
Waking back up from passing out, Henry leaves the broken lift and explores the cavernous archives of the studio to find and rescue Boris. After Alice taunts Henry about Boris' capture, Henry comes across a lounge filled with Lost Ones, people infected by the ink who show no hostility. After fleeing through the vents, Henry discovers that Joey planned to open a Bendy-themed amusement park called Bendy Land, with the help of famed amusement park designer Bertrum Piedmont. Henry deduces that the haunted house attraction is the way to go and traverses the storage area to find the switches to power the ride up. He activates the four power switches, while in the process sneaking past the Butcher Gang, defeating an ink corrupted Bertrum, who has merged himself with an octopus ride, and escaping from the Projectionist, who is decapitated by Ink Bendy. Once on the haunted house ride, Henry is shocked to discover that Alice has transformed Boris into a brute monster. After a brief struggle, Henry is forced to kill Boris, who fades away. An enraged Twisted Alice tries to attack Henry herself, but is killed from behind by another version of Alice Angel and a robot-handed clone of Boris.
Chapter 5: The Last Reel
The new characters, Allison Angel and Tom, lock Henry in a makeshift prison. Henry manages to gain Allison’s trust, while Tom remains hesitant towards him. Allison gives Henry a Seeing Tool, which is used to see hidden messages, and Henry sees a message that says Allison will leave Henry for dead. Later, Ink Bendy discovers Allison and Tom's location, and Tom convinces Allison to leave Henry behind so they can escape. Henry manages to escape the prison after discovering a secret room with a weapon behind the wall, thanks to the hidden messages. Once he escapes, Henry rides on a barge through a river of ink, with a massive Bendy hand chasing behind him. Henry arrives in a shanty town built by the Searchers and the Lost Ones. There, he is confronted by the forsaken Sammy, who believes Henry is Ink Bendy and tries to take revenge for almost killing him. Sammy gets unmasked by Henry, but Sammy overpowers Henry and tries to kill him, but Sammy is killed by Tom. Tom equips Henry with an axe. With Sammy out of the way, the Searchers and Lost Ones he was keeping at bay become violent and start attacking. Henry, Allison and Tom work together and defeat the wave of monsters. Henry leads the way onward, but falls into the administration offices on a lower level. Henry tries to escape through the film vault, but the entrance is flooded. Henry works to reconnect the pipe system to drain the ink, by hiding from the Butcher Gang. Once in the film vault, a message reveals that a film reel has been stolen by Ink Bendy. Allison and Tom arrive and join Henry on his quest to find Ink Bendy. They discover that Ink Bendy's lair is a massive version of the Ink Machine. Henry is forced to go in alone, as the entrance is surrounded by ink, which could kill Allison and Tom. Inside, Henry finds a message from Joey, who talks about his downfall and how Henry can fix the darkness by showing Ink Bendy the stolen reel, titled "The End". Ink Bendy arrives and transforms into a massive monster, known as Beast Bendy. Beast Bendy knocks Henry into another room and gives chase. Henry escapes Beast Bendy and returns to his throne. He plays The End reel, which broadcasts the words "The End" on several screens, causing Beast Bendy to dissolve.
In a flashback, Henry arrives at Joey's house, who talks about how the two went on different paths, and how Joey's path burned because of his ambition. He summons Henry to the studio and the events of the beginning of the game play again.
In a post-credit scene, the camera zooms in on a signed picture from Henry of Bendy, Boris and Alice Angel. Offscreen, a young girl asks her "Uncle Joey" to tell her another story.
Characters and voice cast
Henry Stein (voiced by theMeatly) is a co-founder and animator of Joey Drew Studios, who created the characters in the Bendy cartoons. He is the main protagonist of the game, who has returned to Joey Drew Studios after 30 years.
Joey Drew (voiced by David Eddings) is a co-founder and CEO of Joey Drew Studios. Prior to the games events, Joey went bankrupt. He is the presumed overarching antagonist of the game.
Wally Franks (voiced by theMeatly) is Joey Drew Studios' relaxed janitor. Besides Henry, he is the only character to appear in all 5 chapters. He is most known for his phrase "I'm outta here!"
Thomas Connor (voiced by Mike Mood) is a mechanical engineer from Gent Enterprises who was hired by Joey Drew Studios to build the Ink Machine. In the game, he has been corrupted by the ink and turned into a Boris clone, who goes by Tom.
Sammy Lawrence (voiced by Aaron Landon) is the former music director of Joey Drew Studios, who started to go insane. By the events of the game, he has been corrupted by the ink and worships Bendy as a deity.
Norman Polk (voiced by theMeatly) is the elusive and observant projectionist of Joey Drew Studios. By the events of the game, he has been turned into the Projectionist monster.
Susie Campbell (voiced by Alanna Linayre) is the original voice actress for Alice Angel, who became obsessed with the character, and went crazy when she was replaced by Allison Pendle. By the events of the game, she has been corrupted by the ink and turned into a twisted version of Alice.
Alice Angel (voiced by Lauren Synger) is the lead female in the Bendy cartoons. In the game, she is a twisted form of the original character, taken form through Susie Campbell.
Jack Fain (voiced by Bookpast) is the main lyricist at Joey Drew Studios and Sammy's second-in-command. In the game, he has been corrupted by the ink and transformed into a Swollen Searcher.
Shawn Flynn (voiced by Seán "Jacksepticeye" McLoughlin) is the merchandise director at Joey Drew Studios.
Grant Cohen (voiced by Will "DAGames" Ryan) is Joey Drew's exasperated accountant.
Bertrum Piedmont (voiced by Joe J. Thomas) is a famed theme park designer, who built the Bendy-themed amusement park, Bendy Land and rejects his treatment by Joey Drew. In the game, he has merged with an octopus ride.
Lacie Benton (voiced by Lani Minella) is an engineer working under Bertrum Piedmont.
Allison Pendle (voiced by Lauren Synger) is the second voice actress for Alice Angel, replacing Susie Campbell. In the game, she has been corrupted by the ink and transformed into Allison Angel.
Additionally, there are multiple characters in the game with no featured dialogue:
Ink Bendy is a vicious and deformed version of Bendy, the main character of the Bendy cartoons. He is known by the ink residents as the Ink Demon.
Boris the Wolf / Buddy Boris is a secondary character in the Bendy cartoons. In the game, a friendly version of him appears as Henry's companion, before he is transformed into Brute Boris by Alice. Additionally, multiple clones of Boris appear throughout the game as mutilated corpses.
The Butcher Gang are a trio from the Bendy cartoons, who are always at odds with Bendy. In the game, they appear as the Piper (Charley), the Fisher (Barley) and the Striker (Edgar).
The Searchers are a group of humanoid ink creatures who attack Henry throughout the game.
The Lost Ones are employees of Joey Drew Studios, who have been corrupted by the ink, and aren't hostile. A specific Lost One is voiced by Joe J. Thomas.
The Swollen Searchers are enlarged and passive forms of the Searchers. They are notable for being a source of ink throughout the game.
Development
The idea for Bendy and the Ink Machine came from theMeatly pondering the idea of a world that resembled a cartoon sketch. As he started developing the idea, he realized that it felt "creepy" and needed a monster that inhabited it. Bendy was created to be that monster, but did not have a name. When the character finally received a 3D model, the name was chosen from a typo while saving it in a 3D modeling program, Blender. theMeatly was not a programmer and thus Mike Mood joined the production as he saw potential in the game. Bendy and the Ink Machine was inspired by the BioShock series.
The first chapter, Moving Pictures, took five days to be finished. The game was then released for free on Game Jolt on February 10, 2017, being one of the first games that were released on the platform. Originally, the project was "for fun", according to Mood, but it later became viral and incentivated then to develop a second chapter, The Old Song, which was officially announced in March 2017 and took six months to be finished. It was released on April 18, 2017, and also added a remastered version of the previous chapter, an updated menu, subtitles, achievements, etc. The game was approved by Steam Greenlight on February 28, 2017, and was then released on Steam on April 27, 2017. Chapter 1 was made available for free, while Chapter 2 was released as a DLC for $6 dollars.
The third chapter, Rise and Fall, was announced on production in May 2017. It was developed by six people in at least four months, and the reason for its long development, according to Mike Mood, was because he needed to create a framework "to make the process smoother". Its trailer was released in August 2017, which showed an animated short intitled "Tombstone Picnic" and showed Henry running from Ink Bendy in a room. However, Mike Mood stated it was used only for the trailer's chase sequence and for test purposes. It was released on September 28, 2017, while the previous two chapters also received remastered versions.
The fourth chapter, Colossal Wonders, was firstly confirmed in production on November 17, 2017. It also included remastered versions of the first three chapters, which included enhanced soundtracks and textures. It was released on April 30, 2018. Originally scheduled for April 28, 2018, it was delayed due to technical problems on Steam that disallows to make releases during weekends. The fifth and final chapter, The Last Reel, was firstly confirmed in production on June 4, 2018. Later, they confirmed that it would be released in October. The emprise also confirmed that the chapter would be received for free for only players who have bought the previous chapters. A special edition titled Bendy and the Ink Machine: Jacksepticeye Edition, was given to YouTuber Jacksepticeye before the fifth chapter released to the public, which included all five chapters. It was released on October 26, 2018. The game received a final bundle on the next day, intitled Bendy and the Ink Machine: Complete Edition. Chapters 2-4, which were previously available as downloadable content, became free, while the game became paid.
On January 29, 2018, theMeatly officially announced that Bendy and the Ink Machine would be released to consoles. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ports were developed and published by Rooster Teeth Games, originally intended to be released on October 26, 2018, while the Nintendo Switch port was scheduled to release on November 20, 2018, but both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One's release dates were pushed to the same date for Nintendo Switch's release. On December 15, 2018, a mobile port was announced by theMeatly and Joey Drew Studios Inc., and it was released on December 21, 2018.
Reception
According to the aggregating review website Metacritic, Bendy and the Ink Machine received "mixed or average reviews" on its console ports. The website Rock, Paper, Shotgun considered the first chapter one of the best free games from the week.
The game's storyline and setting were mostly praised. Most reviewers noted that the game's art style resembles the "Steamboat Willie" era of Disney's cartoons, with PlayStation LifeStyle considering Bendy as an "obvious parallel" between other cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse or Betty Boop. Liam Martin of Express considered that the game's theme to be that "classic cartoons are more sinister than we remember". Sean Warhurst of ImpulseGamer also considered the game's visuals as the game's "biggest strength" and that its graphics engine "complements the artistic direction". This was also considered by Barry Stevens of Entertainment Focus, considering that "the game has a really unique art style and really pulls off the old animation studio feel with everything being drawn in a 30s style".
Most websites considered the game's gameplay mechanics repetitive. TheXboxHub considered the game's combat mechanics "frustrating", as most of its enemies die in only one hit. VGCultureHQ considered that if would have some range weapons in the second chapter, such as a gun or a slingshot, "would help make lengthy combat sequences feel more fair and less of a risk". However, it also stated that the boss battles in the game feel "intense". The puzzles, according to The Digital Fix, were considered repetitive, saying that "It's something we've done a million times before".
VGCultureHQ considered the game's chapter lengths "too short" and without a "fair balance", considering that it could be completed in four hours, considering that the first and final chapters could be "finished in just under a half-hour", while the other three chapters "may take longer". According to Hely on Horror, the first chapter serves as a "tutorial", as guides the player to "interact with the environment and solve simple puzzles", the second chapter is where combat is introduced, but it considered that the third chapter is where players are thrown into the action. Steven Asarch of Player.One considered the third chapter's task list as a "lazy attempt for developers to pad the game without adding any additional content", and that if future chapters could focus more on the characters development, "they could've truly be masterpieces".
The game has been frequently compared with BioShock, due to, according to PlayStation LifeStyle, the game having an "antique style". Nintendo Life also considered the motives of having a BioShock vibe in the game due to "the revelations that are made of Henry's past to the retro aesthetic that clings to every corner of the game's dilapidated setting". However, it also compared it to Resident Evil, and Outlast, considering it a "fusion". The game was also compared with Cuphead and Epic Mickey, for their homages to "rubber hose" animation and the style of 20th-century cartoons.
Sales
By 2017, the game achieved 750 thousand downloads on Steam, according to Player.One.
Awards
The game has received the "Best Horror Game" award by IGN and is listed as #1 in "18 Best Horror Games of 2017". The mobile port received the "Game of the Day" award on February 23, 2019. TouchArcade nominated the mobile port as the "Game of the Week" on December 21, 2018.
Legacy
YouTube was a big contributor for the popularity of Bendy and the Ink Machine. Many gamers where seen making "Let's Play" videos, being one of them Markiplier and Jacksepticeye, and reached millions of views. Many YouTube musicians also made fan songs for Bendy and the Ink Machine, the most popular being DAGames' "Build Our Machine", which has been viewed more than 100 million times. Some of the most popular fanmade songs were later included in an album intitled "Bendy's Inky Megamix", which was made to help raise donations for United Ways COVID-19 relief charity at Tiltify. Some of these fans songs were included in the game, including DAGames' "Build Our Machine", Kyle Allen's "Bendy and the Ink Machine Song", Random Encounters' "Bendy and the Ink Musical", and JT Music's "Can't Be Erased".
This caused the game to have a giant fanbase, which Mood described as different from the most fanbases, calling other games' fanbases sometimes "toxic." The game also attracted children audience, which attention was mostly gaven to the character Bendy, although the game is T-rated. According to Mike Mood, what the made the game so popular was because of its characters.
It also surged merchandise from the game, such as toys, shirts, etc., which can be bought on the game's official store. Books and comic books were also released.
Spin-offs
A mobile spin-off called Bendy in Nightmare Run was announced on January 26, 2018. It was released on the App Store on August 15, 2018 and on the Google Play Store on September 27, 2018. The game is an endless runner style game involving the player characters of either Bendy, Boris, or Alice collecting Bacon Soup while running away from large bosses chasing the player character.
A spin-off called Boris and the Dark Survival was released on February 10, 2020, on Bendy and the Ink Machines 3-year anniversary. The game is a prequel, taking place before the first chapter of the original game. It revolves around Boris the Wolf searching through the different levels of Joey Drew Studios looking for supplies for his safehouse while escaping Ink Bendy, Twisted Alice, the Projectionist, the Butcher Gang, or Borkis, a yellow-eyed version of Boris. The game also received several updates after its release. The latest one, Symphony of Shadows, was released on June 30, 2020.
Joke Games
On October 23, 2018, Joey Drew Studios posted on Twitter an image announcing a joke game, intitled Black Ink Possession, parodying Red Dead Redemption 2. During April Fools in 2020, the emprise poster a trailer of another joke game, Bendy Royale. It parodies Fortnite: Battle Royale, where it was meant to be a battle royale with Bendy and the Ink Machine characters being playable.
Crossovers
A Halloween crossover mod, Hello Bendy, was released for the game on October 27, 2017, for a limited time, featuring the Hello Neighbor antagonist, who takes the role as Bendy in all previous three chapters and Sammy Lawrence for Chapter 2. The mod's menu features the advertisement of pre-ordering the game Hello Neighbor. The mod expired by the end of October that year.
Co-creator Mike Mood has talked about wanting to do a crossover with Cuphead, which also was popular at around the same time and also uses rubber hose animation.
Bendy and the Dark Revival
Another game, Bendy and the Dark Revival, was announced on April 14, 2019. However, Mike Mood stated on February 13, 2019 that it would not serve as Bendy and the Ink Machine 2. A gameplay trailer was released on June 24, 2019, announcing the game's release for Fall 2019. However, in December 2019, a new trailer was released to say that the game was being delayed and will release sometime in 2020. Another trailer was released on June 1, 2020, revealing that the game would be released in its entirety with all five chapters included, unlike the first game which was released episodically. The trailer also suggested the game would come out in the latter half of 2020. However, on November 30, 2020, the developers announced that the game would be releasing in 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The developers also cited that the game will be ten times bigger than the original game and that they didn't want to rush the game. The game was, however, delayed once again to 2022 without being announced.
Television adaptation
In 2020, Derek Kolstad, creator of the John Wick franchise, stated that he has interest in making a television adaptation based on the game.
Notes
References
External links
2017 video games
2018 video games
2019 video games
Android (operating system) games
Episodic video games
First-person video games
Horror video games
IOS games
Indie video games
Linux games
MacOS games
Monochrome video games
Nintendo Switch games
PlayStation 4 games
Single-player video games
Video games about demons
Video games developed in Canada
Video games set in 1963
Video games set in New York City
Windows games
Works about missing people
Xbox One games
Video games scored by theMeatly
Internet memes introduced in 2017
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Ipsita Roy Chakraverti (born Ipsita Chakraverti; 3 November 1950) is a Wiccan priestess based in India. Born into an elite family in India with a diplomat for a father and royalty for mother, Chakraverti spent her early years in Canada and the US where her father was stationed. There, she was allowed to join a select group of women studying ancient cultures of the world and the old ways. Chakraverti studied with them for three years and finally chose Wicca as her religion. After coming back to India and getting married, Chakraverti declared herself as a witch in 1986. Amidst the backlash that followed her declaration, Chakraverti explained to the media the Neo Pagan ways of Wicca and its healing power.
Chakraverti started administering Wiccan ways of healing to the people of India, including traveling to remote villages and teaching the Wiccan way to the female population, several of whom were often accused of black magic and "witchcraft" by male folk, and murdered. In 1998, Chakraverti campaigned as an Indian National Congress candidate for the Parliament of India in the Hooghly district, but was not elected. She released her autobiography Beloved Witch in 2003. A second book titled Sacred Evil: Encounters With the Unknown was released in 2006, and it chronicled nine case studies during her life as a Wiccan healer and explained why those events happened. Both books received positive critical acclaim.
The book, Sacred Evil was made into a motion picture by Sahara One Pictures. Titled Sacred Evil – A True Story, the film starred Bollywood actress Sarika playing Chakraverti. The film was a commercial disappointment but received mixed reviews. Chakraverti started the Wiccan Brigade, a platform for those who wanted to study Wicca. Later, Bengali TV channel ETV Bangla, created two tele-serials based on Chakraverti's life and her experience with the paranormal. Chakraverti, who believes that Wicca is the first feminist movement in history, has been credited with throwing new light on the taboo subject of witchcraft in India, and the rest of the world.
Biography
1950–72: Early life and introduction to Wicca
Chakraverti was born on 3 November 1950, to diplomat Debabrata Chakraverti, and Roma Sen, a descendant of the royals. Chakraverti spent much of her early life in Montreal, Canada, where her father was stationed. He was a representative from India to the Council of ICAO. An only child, she shared her father's passion for reading and devoured books on Indian mysticism and traditions partly because people at Montreal were always asking questions about India. In 1965, while on vacation in the Laurentian mountains, Chakraverti was invited to an all woman's party by one of her mother's friends, Carlotta. There, she was introduced to the Society for the Study of Ancient Cultures and Civilizations, founded by Carlotta. The group studied ancient texts, long-forgotten customs and the mystical way of life. Chakraverti was selected to join the group, through a process of initiation, and enrolled for a course with them. For the next five years, she stayed in a chalet on the mountains and studied ancient cultures and their long-forgotten rituals with eleven other women, with Carlotta as their teacher. Alcohol, close friendship or anything that distracted them from the prescribed hours of study, solitude and meditation, were taboo. Practical training in witchcraft was the only way; it included learning varied techniques of self-development and understanding the significance of ancient chants, movements, symbols, gestures, invoking energy from the elements, and training in the use of the apparatus integral to the craft. Chakraverti later commented, "It started as an academic curiosity. [...] Wicca includes both scientific facts and old lore. We studied Carl Jung and Friedrich Nietzsche because Wicca means studying various layers of the human mind." In 1972, near the completion of their course, Chakraverti, along with two other women were asked to choose between Way of Tao, Wicca and Kabbalah as their practiced craft; Chakraverti chose Wicca. She later commented that ancient goddesses like Isis, Artemis, Hecate, Kali and Freya, played an important role in deciding her future in Wicca.
1975–80: Finishing Wicca study, return to India and marriage
While studying in the chalet, Chakraverti came across a number of prophecies left by a fifteenth-century Wiccan, Luciana, who was brought to trial for practicing her craft, but managed to escape to a castle on the Rhine. Chakraverti translated the scrolls and believed that she was the reincarnation of Luciana. She commented in her book Beloved Witch,
"Even though Wicca does not believe in fortune telling or divination, Luciana left a few quatrains like Nostradamus, prophesying about generations to come. I was the one who sat at a chalet monastery in the Laurentians years ago and translated them from an ancient dialect to English. I knew I had to. That was my purpose. For I was Luciana returned. To take revenge for the wrongs she had suffered, to vindicate all women who are battered and bruised as witches in India till today. I have a purpose – I know that. Through the eyes of Luciana I see this world.
I am She – I rise with the stormI was killed – now I am born
On the winds of revenge
Blood, lust and greed, I will avenge.
At the end of her study, Carlotta gave each new initiate witch certain implements: symbolic gifts of Mother Goddesses who are worshipped by Wiccans. From Athena, Ipsita received a black cloak, which conferred majesty and regality on her. Among other gifts given to her were a crystal skull of Kali and a silver bowl from Venus to be filled with water and used in particular rituals. However, she did not receive a certain glowing amber ball of Hecate, which confers vision and is used for toning up the electro-magnetic system of the body. Carlotta told her, "If you have been and are a true Wiccan, the ball will come to you in some part of your life." That year, Chakraverti was involved in a relationship with singer Elvis Presley, whom she met in Graceland, through a mutual friend. In 1975, Chakraverti's family decided to come back to India. She lived for a few years in Delhi, before coming back to their home in Kolkata in 1978. There, while teaching at South Point High School, she met Jayanta Roy through some mutual friends and became romantically involved with him. Roy is an erstwhile love-child of the king of Orissa, an Indian state. Chakraverti and Roy got married and had a daughter Deepta Roy Chakraverti.
1981–95: Coming out as a witch and social work
After Deepta's birth, Chakraverti decided to start her work of Wicca and help women in the villages of West Bengal, where many used to be accused of witchcraft and killed. Chakraverti finally declared in front of the media, in 1986, that she was a witch. A backlash followed, including protest movements and boycotts, led by the Bengal CPM leader Jyoti Basu. However, Chakraverti put all allegations to rest and addressed the media at a press conference. There, she spoke about how Wicca is a Neo pagan religion and a form of modern witchcraft. It is often referred to as Witchcraft or the Craft by its adherents, who are known as Wiccans or Witches. She declared that she wished to start her own healing center and curb the "witch-killings" happening at that time in rural Bengal. The press was impressed by her knowledge and her straightforwardness in addressing such a taboo subject. She later clarified, "I had the social and economic padding and I decided to use it."
After the incident, Chakraverti started to administer the Wiccan way of healing and held sessions at her home. She used to advocate different ways of healing the mind and counsel people on their day to day problems suggest solutions for them. Chakraverti used the curative powers of crystals for curing people of backache, pains and spinal injuries. She also started investigating and bringing to light the plight of women in rural Bengal where many were tortured after being labeled as witches. Chakraverti travelled to such villages in Purulia, Bankura, Birbhum and documented such crimes, sometimes teaching women who were emotionally or physically battered by men to recognize and unleash the power within themselves. "Wicca can do that through their empowerment of the goddesses. [...] The village women—simple women accused of witchcraft—would give me stories which were really heartbreaking. It opened my eyes to how much venom there was in these men. [...] I have tried to bring succor to women branded ‘witches' or ‘dayans' who are still today being molested and killed for what they are believed to practice. I have brought their cases before the authorities and the press in an attempt to show up the hypocrisy of their persecutors – mostly men – who are trying to denigrate this ancient branch of learning in order to wreak revenge on these women for some very personal motives."
1996–2004: Election candidacy, Beloved Witch and Sacred Evil
In 1998, Chakraverti campaigned as an Indian National Congress candidate for the Parliament of India in the Hooghly district. She was requested to take up the post on behalf of Sonia Gandhi, but was not elected. Later, Chakraverti became the Secretary of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee. She then started working on her biography, titled Beloved Witch: An Autobiography. The book tells how she came to be a Wiccan and how she had carried on the tag of being a "witch" in a society where witches are still feared and hated. The book, after its release in November 2000, won critical acclaim. Nona Walia of The Times of India commented, "Roy Chakraverti knows that it is unusual for well-bred Bengali girls to become witches and acknowledges her gratitude to her mother for allowing her the right to choose. After all, she says, every strong woman can be a witch in her own right, and that is perhaps the truest message that the book holds for the reader. [...] If there is a problem with the book, it is that much is left unsaid and much of it seems hurried, as if an editor said, 'Don't make it too serious, people won't understand,' just enough for people to chatter about at a cocktail party."
She released a second book in 2003, titled Sacred Evil: Encounters with the Unknown. The book, which was previously known as Good and Evil, chronicled nine case studies during her life as a Wiccan healer and gives explanations as to why those events happened. To promote the book, Chakraverti held a healing session at Oxford Bookstore in Kolkata, where she read excerpts from the book, and gave demonstration of her healing skills, holding the hand of a volunteer, tapping her with her athame (wand) and reciting Egyptian chants. After its release, the book received positive reaction from critics. Rajdeep Bains from The Tribune commented "Sacred Evil is a very coherent account of the author’s dealings with witchcraft and sorcery. Unfortunately, it could add to superstition, which is already prevalent at an unhealthy level in our country. As a work of fiction it would have been laudable; given the cover of truth it becomes a dangerous piece of writing. [...] But what makes Sacred Evil so interesting is the juxtaposition of modern thought with the ageless. After every chapter there are notes on the practices described in it along with modern explanations." Krithika Ranjan from The Hindu commented, "Throughout [Sacred Evil] Chakraverti refers to herself as a skeptic. Yet the stories she tells are bound to raise the ire of rationalists. You can almost hear one spluttering about superstition as you read the story Those who return. [...] In the final analysis, the book is a good read — whether you believe in the dark arts or whether you just want to curl up with a spine chiller." Chakraverti started working on her third book, tentatively titled Every Strong Woman is a Witch.
2005–07: Sacred Evil – A True Story and The Wiccan Brigade
In 2005, The Kolkata Telegraph reported that director Rituparno Ghosh wanted to cast Chakraverti in a film based on a case the Wiccan had encountered while practicing the craft. Ghosh commented, "Till now, I have dealt with relationships and the intricacies of the human mind. With this film, I want to delve into that which lies beyond and observe how this non-conventional spiritualism, Wicca, guides me. [...] It's a story of two time zones, separated by a span of 150 years, two people of different mindsets and different cultures." However, in 2006, the story Sacred Evil from Sacred Evil: Encounters with the Unknown was adapted into a film by Sahara One Motion Pictures; Ipsita served as creative director. The film, titled as Sacred Evil – A True Story, was a joint venture between Sahara One and Percept Picture Company. Sacred Evil was the last story in the book and is about a nun who was hounded by her troubled past and for whom the convent eventually sought counseling from Chakraverti. Sahara One had approached August 2004 to make a film on Sacred Evil, but she was reluctant to play herself on the big screen when offered the role, and chose, instead to be the creative director. Chakraverti helped pen the script, incorporating a large amount of dialogue from her story. "I told the production team how the protagonist reacted in certain situations, since I had lived the story, and how the dialogue happened. [...] I also insisted that the film be shot in Calcutta, though others had suggested other places, because it's here where I have done most of my therapies." Actress Sarika was signed to play Chakraverti's part, to which Chakraverti said: "The other and more important task was familiarizing Sarika with the ways of a Wiccan. We had several sittings before going for the shoot. Sarika wanted to imbibe me. So, she came down to Delhi and lived with me for a while. I showed her how the healing took place and how certain rituals had been conducted."
However, before its release, Sacred Evil – A True Story faced a petition which challenged the Censor Board's decision to grant an exhibition certificate to the film. The petition, filed by lawyer Gerry Coelho, contended that granting the certificate to the film, was unethical and indecent on the part of the Censor Board of India and constituted total non-application of mind. The objections raised by Coelho were based on the film's posters and promotional advertisements. The Censor Board said that they had not been insensitive to Christian sentiments. "We are very careful when we screen sensitive movies [...] But, there is nothing in the movie that is objectionable, or will hurt the sentiments of the community in question." The film was given green signal by the censor board, but was still postponed because of non-availability of theatres. It was finally released on 23 June 2006, and was a commercial disappointment but received mixed reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama commented: "Sacred Evil is a pleasant change and a break from the monotony of the regular Hindi films. However, the subject is one that caters to a niche audience only. However, the fact cannot be denied that the narrative does not go off-track nor does it seem as if some sequences have been incorporated for the sake of it. Despite its slow pacing, Sacred Evil has the knack to hold the interest of its viewer. It's definitely a fine effort by directors Abiyaan Rajhans and Abhigyan Jha. The performances are above average, with Sarika dominating the show." Deepali Singh from The Kolkata Telegraph gave the film three out of ten, stating "If one hopes to discover the secrets of Wiccan ways in Sacred Evil, directed by Abiyaan Rajhans and Abhigyan Jha, one is in for a major disappointment. Beyond a candlelit session, which doesn't really lead anywhere except to a few flickers of vague shadows in the background, the story just about treads into the Wiccan world. [...] Sarika, as Ipsita, ghost walks through another expressionless comeback."
Chakraverti announced the launch of the Wiccan Brigade in November 2006. It was a platform for those interested in studying Wicca and using the branch of knowledge to holistic effect. Though Wicca was predominantly practiced by women, Wiccan Brigade welcomed men also. Chakraverti commented, "Close to 100 people, comprising professionals, some housewives and many students, have approached me on the Net to start the group. I think it’s the right time to institutionalize Wicca. [...] Though it wouldn’t be possible to have here the kind of training we had in the Laurentians, there would be sessions on yoga and meditation, and lectures and group discussions." A batch of 25 people were selected through a screening process and they participated in the sessions consisting of social, historical, psychological and gender-related issues of Wicca. In July 2007, the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (NCMEI) nominated Chakraverti to head a panel tasked with improving the status of young girls in India. She launched the Wiccan Brigade in London in December 2007and named it Ipsita's Yogini Club. Chakraverti commented, "I’ve always believed the yogini and the witch are the same, and London seems to me to be a place where various cultures of the world have come together. It has a rich cultural history and an atmosphere in which the spirit of the past lives on. It is the right place for the Yogini Club."
2008–present: The Konark Project, Parapaar and The Living Doll
Chakraverti claimed to have cracked the mystic code that shrouds the Konark Sun Temple in Orissa, and its curative power. After years of research, she made this revelation in a documentary titled The Konark Code, which was premiered at the Nehru Centre in London in February 2008. Her theory was that the temple at Konark was a healing spot, a cure centre for various diseases. King Narasimha Deva started making the temple in 1253 AD and it took him 12 years to complete it. "Myth says that Samba, the son of Krishna, went to the spot to get himself cured of leprosy. Till date, hundreds of leprosy patients flock to the temple to cure themselves. There are other factors that add to the temple's existence as a healing centre." According to Chakraverti, solar rays and sound frequency also played an important part in healing. The dance that was part of worship was for a purpose. The vibration of the steps of the dancers energized the temple stones. The sun's rays, because of the particular corner in which the temple was constructed, also played an important part. In August, Chakraverti worked on a tele serial for ETV Bangla called Parapaar. The show was based on Chakraverti's life-journey and her encounters with the paranormal. A dramatized story, where actress Chandrayee Ghosh played the part, was aired from Monday to Friday, and on Saturday, Chakraverti herself interacted with audiences through phone-ins related to the story. She commented, "I had reservations when I was approached for Parapaar because it’s important to convey the philosophy and atmosphere in Wicca in the right way. But I feel it’s time to reach Wicca to the masses, and since Bengal is the place where the Mother Goddess Durga is worshipped, it’s important that misconceptions about Dakinividya are shattered. People should know who a daini is and what she does."
In June 2009, Chakraverti collaborated with filmmaker Anjan Dutt and Sarika to make a film called The Loving Doll, with the story taken from Sacred Evil again. It will be filmed in Hindi with bits of English. Sarika plays the central character of a middle-aged woman obsessed about losing her looks. The story revolves around a married couple beset with personal problems, triggered by a doll owned by the wife. Charaverti said: "After the film Sacred Evil, I have been approached by several directors for another film but the inspiration was not there. This time around there was a synchronicity — Sarika phoned me to ask if I was thinking of another film. She has long wanted to play the woman in The Loving Doll [...] Then I happened to see Madly Bangalee, and liked Anjan’s work very much. I think he has the touch to be able to handle the subject of The Loving Doll. So I contacted him and he was very interested in the project. Though he works in a very different genre from mine, I think there is empathy between his work and mine." Chakraverti also said that she may play the part of a healer in the film, "It’s the director’s prerogative. We will do what is best for the film." In April 2010, ETV Bangla created a serial called Dibaratrir Galpo, which was based on Beloved Witch. The plot of Dibaratrir Galpo, directed by Tathagata Banerjee, centres around a dispute between two aristocratic Bengali families, but the lead character (played by Sudipta Chakraborty) was shown as a follower of Wicca who learns to develop her psychic power and uses it to counter the machinations of her enemies. Chakraverti appeared on the commercials for the serial because she felt that her deglamorised presence helped audiences in the suburbs see elderly women, who are often branded as witches, in a positive light. "I felt that the story of Dibaratrir Galpo would take to esoteric ideas very well. It has a women-oriented theme and it will show how the negative aspects of the esoteric can be countered."
Influence and legacy
Chakraverti's public declaration that she was a witch came at a time, when India still considered the word "witch", taboo. Author Kumkum Bhandari said that "Ipsita was a pioneer. Remember, call someone a 'witch' and you could be in for slander. Legally. But she was easily accepted. Partly because of her packaging and presentation—she is elegant, articulate and poised. People listen when she speaks. [...] Life and magic course through and around her. Being a witch is about ripping away layers of social conditioning, gender limitations and protective shields. It is, in a sense about moving towards being the complete and total woman. There is intensity, conviction and passion in the way Ipsita talks about witchcraft, or Wicca—the Craft of the Wise—and its relevance throughout history." Chakraverti also observes that "If I had come from a different rung of society, or was illiterate, the reaction wouldn't be the same. I have observed that it is always the person they will accept, and then the word Wicca. Witches are not born, they are made. Or perhaps they sculpt themselves." According to her, every strong woman can be considered a witch. "A witch is the total woman. Strong daring women who have dared to live their own life, whatever it is. Jacqueline Kennedy, Indira Gandhi, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Namita Gokhale, Kiran Bedi—all of them could count as witches." Chakraverti has argued that Wicca is the first feminist movement in history and the oldest women-oriented branch of learning.
In Beloved Witch, Chakraverti stated that "The witches of olden times were learned women. They were goddess worshippers. They were doctors and wiser than the panchayat men." According to scholar Gary F. Jensen, who wrote the book The path of the devil: early modern witch hunts, Chakraverti's self-confession of being a witch, brought a new light on the taboo subject of witchcraft in India, and the rest of the world. She paralleled the conflict between women as healers and tribal leaders of Indian villages to the conflict between women, accused of witchcraft and the male-dominated society during Medieval Europe. Jensen added, "I think what Chakraverti has done is open up a new door, not only for India, but for the rest of the world, by showing that women can't be held down by norms. She can be anything she wants." She commented about being a Wiccan as,
"A Wiccan knows how to live life. There is no negativity no dullness, no pulling back. That effortlessness is there. Before you can draw energy from the elements to rejuvenate yourself, you have to love nature, attune and identify with it. To bring it to more practical and understandable levels, you must have an almost sensuous and sensual relation with what is around you. Attune your senses finely to recognize the sensuous touches of nature. Winter flowers are not fragrant, but there is a smell to them. Identify it. Only as you become finely-honed and centered will you be able to sense and use the presence of earth energy or that of other elements. The more you sensitize yourself, the more Nature reveals her secrets."
Chakraverti's greatest influence has been on her daughter Deepta, who was chosen as her successor to helm the task of promoting about Wicca. Chakraverti commented: "There are certain aspects of Wicca that you can't teach; they have to be absorbed. Something that I am not consciously passing on, something that has to be taken from me. I felt Deepta had the potential and I would have never forced her had she not been so keen. This is not necessarily through a mother-daughter bonding, it can be guru-shishya (mentor-protégé), or any form of relationship where there is a guiding force." Deepta, was trained by Chakraverti in meditation, physical exercises, studying old religions, and other Wiccan regimen. Chakraverti has also brought forth similarities between Old Wiccan findings and the discoveries of modern physics and parapsychology. According to Sudipto Shome of The Hindu, "You could be called a dayan and burnt alive, or you could be called an enchantress and enlighten an audience on the art of Wicca. Ipsita is the latter, and she has used her social and economic padding to make others listen to her."
References
Bibliography
External links
Indian feminist writers
Indian Wiccans
Living people
Writers from Kolkata
Wiccan feminists
Wiccan priestesses
1950 births
Women writers from West Bengal
Wiccan writers
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Sahibzada Mohammad Shahid Khan Afridi (Urdu: ; Pashto: ; born 1 March 1977), known as Shahid Afridi, is a former Pakistani cricketer and captain of the Pakistan national cricket team. Afridi is widely considered as one of the most popular and destructive cricketers. An all-rounder, Afridi bowled leg spin and was recognized for his aggressive batting. Afridi was also a world record holder, holding the record for the fastest ODI century, in 37 deliveries. The record stood for 17 years before being broken by Corey Anderson. He also holds the record for having hit the most sixes in the history of ODI cricket. Bowling-wise Afridi, who considers himself a better bowler than batter, has taken 395 wickets in ODI and 48 Test wickets. In addition he has also taken 98 T20I wickets.
Afridi was player of the match in the 2009 T20 World Cup Final of the 2009 T20 World Cup scoring an unbeaten 54, having also been the player of the tournament in the 2007 edition. He led the Pakistan team in the 2011 Cricket World Cup where they reached the semi-finals before losing to rival India. In January 2010, he was banned for the rest of the series against Australia after biting the ball in an act of ball tampering. In tests, Afridi was captain for just one match before resigning and retiring from the format, a move which allowed Salman Butt to replace him. After Pakistan's group stage elimination from the 2016 T20 World Cup, Afridi said he was stepping down from captaincy but not retiring. However he was not selected afterwards and on 19 February 2017, Afridi announced his retirement from international cricket. He made a brief return to international cricket after being selected to represent and captain the World XI against the West Indies in the 2018 Hurricane Relief T20 Challenge charity match. Following the conclusion of the match, Afridi announced his retirement from international cricket on 31 May 2018.
Domestically Afridi has represented many teams. He was the captain of Peshawar Zalmi in the 2016 Pakistan Super League, having been the first player to be picked in the competition, and won the trophy with them in 2017. He also represented the Karachi Kings in 2018 and currently plays for the Quetta Gladiators in the PSL. He has also played for Hampshire scoring his only T20 century with them and is the current captain of Galle Gladiators in the Lanka Premier League.
Away from cricket Afridi runs his own charity, the Shahid Afridi Foundation which aims to provide education and healthcare facilities. He also teamed up with UNICEF to promote the anti-polio campaign in the country. During the 2019 Coronavirus pandemic, he was involved in helping people across Balochistan during the lockdown in the country. This led to him contracting COVID-19 on June 13, 2020. Afridi was also nominated among the top 20 most charitable athletes of 2015.
Early and personal life
In his autobiography, Game Changer (2019), Afridi claimed his year of birth as 1975. But Afridi later clarified that his autobiography's first edition carried the wrong year. It had earlier been reported that he was born in Khyber Agency, Pakistan to an Afridi tribe of Pashtuns in 1980.
He belongs to a family of Sufi pirs (teachers or spiritual masters) and his grandfather Maulana Muhammad Ilyas was a well-known spiritual figure in Bhutan Sharif, a locality in the Tirah Valley. His other grandfather, Sahibzada Abdul Baqi, was given the title Ghazi-e-Kashmir (conqueror of Kashmir) for his efforts during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948.
He is married to his maternal cousin Nadia Afridi and has five daughters. In 2021, Afridi announced his eldest daughter Aqsa's engagement to cricketer Shaheen Afridi.
Afridi was drafted to the Pakistan senior national team after fine performances at the under-19 championship circuit starting the 1994–95 season. Playing for the Karachi Whites, he helped his team win the title the following season picking 42 wickets in five matches at an impressive average of 9.59. Later that season, Afridi had played against the visiting England A and West Indies Youth teams and a few first-class games for Karachi Whites in the senior National Championship.
International career
In October 1996, Afridi was drafted into the ODI team during the four-nation Sameer Cup 1996–97 as a leg spinner as a replacement for the injured Mushtaq Ahmed. He made his debut on 2 October against Kenya; however, he didn't bat and went wicketless. In the next match against Sri Lanka, Afridi batted at number three in the role of a pinch-hitter. In his first international innings, Afridi broke the record for fastest century in ODI cricket, reaching his hundred from 37 balls. The eleven sixes he struck also equaled the record for most in an ODI innings. Pakistan posted a total of 371, at the time the second-highest in ODIs, and won by 82 runs; Afridi was named man of the match. The record for fastest century in ODI was broken by New Zealand cricketer Corey Anderson on 1 January 2014 who reached triple-figures from 36 balls and is now held by South-African cricketer AB de Villiers who made a century from 31 balls on 18 January 2015 against West Indies.
Two years after appearing on the international scene, Afridi made his Test debut in the third game of a three-match series against Australia on 22 October 1998. By this point he had already played 66 ODIs, at the time a record before playing Tests. He opened the batting, making scores of 10 and 6, and took five wickets in the first innings. He played his second Test the following January during Pakistan's tour of India; it was the first Test between the two countries since 1990. Again opening the batting, Afridi scored his maiden Test century, scoring 141 runs from 191 balls. In the same match he also claimed three wickets for 54 runs. After winning the first match by 12 runs, Pakistan lost the second to draw the series.
In 2001, Afridi signed a contract to represent Leicestershire. In five first-class matches he scored 295 runs at an average of 42.14, including a highest score of 164, and took 11 wickets at an average of 46.45; Afridi also played 11 one day matches for the club, scoring 481 runs at an average of 40.08 and taking 18 wickets at 24.04. His highest score of 95 came from 58 balls in a semi-final of the C&G Trophy to help Leicestershire beat Lancashire by seven wickets. Derbyshire County Cricket Club signed Afridi to play for them in the first two months of the 2003 English cricket season. In June 2004 Afridi signed with English county side Kent to play for them in three Twenty20 matches and one Totesport League match.
Afridi made his presence felt in the third Test against India in March 2005, scoring a quick-fire second-innings half-century and taking five wickets in the match (including Tendulkar twice) to help Pakistan to win the game and register a series draw. In April Afridi struck what at the time was the equal second-fastest century in ODIs; he reached 100 off 45 deliveries against India, sharing the record with West Indian Brian Lara. Afridi was more consistent with his batting and bowling throughout 2005, starting with the tours of India and West Indies and through to the England tour. The Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer helped Afridi to reach a fuller potential by improving his shot selection and giving him free rein over his batting attitude.
On 21 November 2005, Shahid Afridi was banned for a Test match and two ODIs for deliberately damaging the pitch in the second match of the three-Test series against England. Television cameras pictured him scraping his boots on the pitch scuffing the surface when play was held up after a gas canister exploded. Afridi later pleaded guilty to a level three breach of the ICC code of conduct relating to the spirit of the game. Match referee Roshan Mahanama said: "This ban should serve as a message to players that this type of behaviour is not allowed."
On 12 April 2006, Afridi announced a temporary retirement from Test cricket so that he could concentrate on ODIs, with a particular focus on the 2007 World Cup, and to spend more time with his family. He said he would consider reversing his decision after the World Cup. Afridi had played ten Tests since being recalled to the side in January 2005, averaging 47.44 with the bat including four centuries. However, on 27 April he reversed his decision, saying that "[Woolmer] told me that I am one of the main players in the team and squad and that Pakistan really needed me". Before Pakistan toured England in July to September, Afridi played for Ireland as an overseas player in the C&G Trophy. In six matches, he scored 128 runs and took seven wickets. England won the four-match Test series 3–0; Afridi played two matches, scoring 49 runs and took three wickets. It was the last Test cricket Afridi played until 2010.
Afridi was charged on 8 February 2007 of bringing the game into disrepute after he was seen on camera thrusting his bat at a spectator who swore at him on his way up the steps after being dismissed. Afridi was given a four-game ODI suspension, the minimum possible ban for such an offence, meaning that he would miss Pakistan's first two 2007 World Cup matches. The PCB and Afridi chose not to appeal the ban, despite feeling that the punishment was excessively harsh.
In the 2007 World Twenty20, he performed poorly with the bat but brilliantly with the ball, earning the Man of the Series award, though he failed to take a wicket in the final and was out for a golden duck. He also became the first person to receive the Player of the Tournament award in T20 World Cup history. But in the next ICC Twenty20 World Cup, held in 2009 Afridi performed brilliantly in the series scoring 50 runs in the semi-final and 54 in the final and leading his team to victory.
During the ICC World T20 final in 2009 versus Sri Lanka at Lord's, he set some all-round records.
He became the first player to score a fifty in a successful runchase in a World T20 final.
Afridi became the first player to score a fifty and to take at least a single wicket in a World T20 final.
He also became the only player to win both the Player of the Final(2009) and the Player of the tournament awards in ICC World T20 history.
Captaincy (2009–2011)
Shortly after Pakistan won the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 the captain Younis Khan announced his retirement from Twenty20 cricket the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) subsequently announced that Shahid Afridi had taken over as captain in T20Is; the appointment was initially for one match, with a decision on the permanent replacement to be made later. His spell of 6–38 against Australia in 2010 was voted as the Best ODI Bowling Performance of 2009 by ESPNCricinfo. On 31 January 2010, Afridi was caught on camera biting into the ball towards the end of the 5th Commonwealth Bank ODI series in Australia. Later Afridi pleaded guilty to ball tampering and he was banned from two Twenty20 internationals.
In March 2010 the board announced that Shahid Afridi had been appointed ODI captain in place of the sacked Mohammad Yousuf he led Pakistan in the 2010 Asia Cup and during his first three matches as ODI captain he scored two centuries against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh he finished as the tournaments highest runscorer with 384 runs from 3 matches.
On 25 May 2010, Afridi was appointed captain of the national team in all three formats, after he announced his return to Test cricket. In July 2010, Afridi captained Pakistan in the first Test of the series at Lord's against Australia. He scored 31 off 15 deliveries in the first innings and 2 in the second but was dismissed succumbing to rash strokes in both the innings. After the match, he announced retirement from Test cricket again citing lack of temperament for Test cricket as the reason. Afridi was officially removed from the Test squad on the England tour, but after the spot-fixing scandal saw Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and Test captain Salman Butt temporarily suspended by the International Cricket Council, he stated that he might return to Test cricket if "the team needs it". According to a representative of Afridi, he had voiced his concerns about Mazhar Majeed – who had approached Pakistan's players – in June. Majeed also confirmed that he approached Afridi, Abdul Razzaq, Younis Khan and Saeed Ajmal but all off them refused to be affiliated with him of his fixing menace. Worth mentioning is that the four names given above were not associated in the original scandal and that no disciplinary action have been taken against them by the sports governing body the International Cricket Council.
In October, Afridi stated in an interview with Express News that the squad had been selected without his consultation; the PCB gave him an official warning for the interview. Coach Waqar Younis also expressed his unhappiness at having no input in the selection; however, Mohsin Khan, the chief selector, defended the decision, stating, "it is not written down in the PCB constitution that the coach and captain(s) must have a say in the selection of any squad". Pakistan lost the series 3–2.
The team toured New Zealand between December 2010 and February 2011 for two Tests, six ODIs, and three T20Is. Pakistan lost the first two T20Is but won the third; in final match Afridi became the first cricketer to reach 50 international wickets in the format. In the same match, he also became the first cricketer to have completed the double of 500 runs and 50 wickets in the T20 Internationals.
When Pakistan's squad for the 2011 World Cup was announced no captain was named; Afridi, the incumbent ODI captain and Misbah-ul-Haq, the Test captain, were the front runners for the position. Pakistan lost the first match against New Zealand by 8-wickets, the second match got rained out and in the third Mohammad Hafeez scored a century and Afridi scored a blistering 65 from just 25 balls. The following match was a tight game but Pakistan prevailed by two-wickets thanks to three boundaries from Sohail Tanvir, the match was set up by a 93 not out from Misbah-ul-Haq. The fifth ODI was won for Pakistan by 43 runs courtesy of a maiden ODI-century from Ahmed Shehzad. Afridi helped in the lower order by scoring 24 and taking two crucial top order wickets to help guide Pakistan to a 43-run victory and their first ODI series win in two years.
After gaining victory as a captain against New Zealand, the PCB declared Shahid Afridi as Pakistan's captain for the 2011 World Cup. In Pakistan's opening match of the tournament, Afridi took 5 wickets for 16 runs against Kenya, giving him the best bowling figures by a Pakistan bowler in a World Cup. In the following match against Sri Lanka, which Pakistan won, Afridi claimed four more wickets to help his side to victory and became the second player to have scored 4,000 runs and taken 300 wickets in ODIs. He claimed 17 wickets from 6 matches in the first round of the Cup, including a five-wicket haul against Canada, as Pakistan finished top of their group and progressed to the next stage. After beating the West Indies in the quarter-final, with Afridi taking four wickets, Pakistan were knocked out of the semi-finals in a 29-run defeat to India. Afridi was the tournament's joint-leading wicket-taker with 21 wickets, level with India's Zaheer Khan, even though Afridi had played one match less than him.
Soon after the World Cup Pakistan toured the West Indies for a T20I, five ODIs, and two Tests. Pakistan lost the only T20I but won the ODI series that followed 3–2. Afridi took two wickets and scored 28 runs in the series. The coach, Waqar Younis, fell out with Afridi and in his report on the tour criticised Afridi, saying "as a captain he is very immature, has poor discipline, lacks a gameplan and is unwilling to listen to others' opinions or advice". After the series, on 19 May, the PCB replaced Afridi as ODI captain with Misbah-ul-Haq for the two-match ODI series against Ireland later that month. In 34 ODIs as captain, Afridi led his side to 18 wins and 15 defeats. Afridi subsequently withdrew from the touring squad, citing the illness of his father.
Conditional retirement and return (2011–2017)
On 30 May Afridi announced his conditional retirement from international cricket in protest against his treatment by the PCB. The condition on his return was that the board be replaced. The PCB suspended Afridi's central contract, fined him 4.5 million rupees ($52,300), and revoked his no-objection certificate (NOC) which allowed Afridi to play for Hampshire. Afridi filed a petition with the Sindh High Court to overturn the sanctions. On 15 June, Afridi withdrew his petition after an out of court settlement and the PCB reinstated his NOC. When the PCB's central contracts were renewed in August, Afridi's was allowed to lapse. In October he withdrew his retirement as Ijaz Butt had been replaced as chairman of the PCB.
Two weeks after his announcement, Afridi was included in Pakistan's squad to face Sri Lanka in three ODIs and a T20I. In November 2011, Afridi became the only cricketer to score a half-century and take five wickets on two separate occasions in ODIs. Afridi achieved this feat in the fourth ODI against Sri Lanka which helped Pakistan to secure the one-day series. He also became the first person to score 50 in his 50th T20I. Afridi has the 3rd most International Player of the Match awards(11), with only Mohammad Nabi(12) & Virat Kohli(12) having more in T20s.
In 2013 during the first ODI game against the West Indies in Guyana, Afridi scored 76(55) before taking figures of 7/12, the second best ODI bowling figures ever. In July 2014, he played for the Rest of the World side in the Bicentenary Celebration match at Lord's.
Afridi announced his retirement from ODI cricket after 2015 Cricket World Cup. Pakistan lost to Australia in the quarter final and got eliminated from the tournament. In March 2016, Pakistan was eliminated from the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 after losing to India, New Zealand and Australia. There were talks about this being Afridi's 'last Twenty20' and he said after the loss to Australia that he would think about retiring and announce it within a week. On 3 April 2016, he announced he will not be retiring, but instead just step down as Twenty20 Captain.
In September 2016, the PCB announced that they wanted Afridi to retire. Afridi said it was unfair for them to announce his plans in the media, but then said he wanted a farewell match, which didn't happen as a result of him cancelling a meeting regarding the issue with the PCB. In 2017, Afridi announced that he quit international cricket after 21 years, saying he would continue to play domestic T20 cricket.
2016 ICC World Twenty20
In March 2016, Pakistan was unable to make it to the semi-finals in the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 after losing to New Zealand, India and Australia. Before Australia's match, the PCB hinted at Afridi's retirement. However, he went against their decision after the match and announced that he would make the decision himself after consulting family and other iconic players beforehand and also announce it in Pakistan. He also stated that 'as a player, I am fit. As a captain, I am not fit'. Former Australian player Ian Chappell praised his honesty in this confession.
Waqar Younis, the head coach, was initially blamed and he accepted responsibility and offered to retire. However, a six-page report by Younis was later leaked by the PCB to the media where he was shown to be pointing much of the blame onto Afridi. First Younis claimed that Afridi was 'unfair' to new cricketer Mohammad Nawaz by calling him up to bowl in the Asia Cup 2016 because it 'destroyed the youngster's confidence' after he gave 38-runs in 3 overs. Younis went on to accuse Afridi of being 'non-serious' in the game along with saying that he missed training sessions and meetings. He also said that Afridi showed poor performance with the bat, ball and as a captain and was clearly not listened to by other players. Younis expressed great anger on the report being leaked as it led to fans criticising him for shifting the blame onto Afridi instead of accepting equal responsibility. Manager Intikhab Alam also called Afridi 'clueless' in the 3 matches but said Younis was unable to ensure that the players were physically fit.
Afridi was asked to appear to the enquiry committee, made up of Misbah-ul-Haq and other iconic players, who would hear his view on the situation. However, it was said he refused to until it was revealed that his daughter was in hospital undergoing surgery at the time. He opted to be interviewed by phone.
Days after the match, Afridi posted a video on Twitter, in which he apologised to all his fans for the team's disappointing performance. He said he didn't care about what others were saying about him and only wanted to answer to his fans and wanted to apologise for letting them and Pakistan down. Despite earlier criticism, many fans commented and circulated that he should not be sorry, with many from India supporting him. Even during his arrival from Dubai back to Pakistan, a few days after the rest of the team, fans chanted 'Boom Boom Afridi' at the airport amidst high security.
In April 2016, he finally announced he was stepping down as T20I captain, but was not retiring. He said he wanted to "continue to play the game for my country". Sarfraz Ahmed was appointed as Pakistan's T20I captain following Afridi's resignation.
Retirement
In July 2010, Afridi announced his retirement from Test cricket. After the 2015 ICC World Cup, he retired from ODI cricket as well. In February 2017, he announced his retirement from T20Is and international cricket. However, in April 2018, he was named in the Rest of the World XI squad for the one-off T20I against the West Indies, which was played at Lord's on 31 May 2018. He went on to captain the side, after Eoin Morgan had to withdraw due to injury.
T20 franchise career
IPL career
Afridi was signed by Deccan Chargers, and played in the inaugural season of the IPL. He could only score 81 runs in 10 matches and picked up 9 wickets in the tournament. He did not play in the 2nd edition of IPL due to the tense atmosphere after the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan Super League
In the first season of Pakistan Super League, Shahid Afridi was part of the franchise Peshawar Zalmi as Captain and as Icon Player. After the end of the PSL Season 1, Afridi was made the President of Peshawar Zalmi. In the PSL 2017 drafts Afridi step down as Peshawar Zalmi Captain and appoints Darren Sammy as captain in the PSL Season 2 they winning the title with them. After the end of the second season Afridi left the Peshawar Zalmi as president and as Player as well, Later Afridi was made the President of Karachi Kings. He also transferred to Karachi as a player ahead of PSL drafts.
Ahead of PSL 2019 drafts Shahid Afridi left the Karachi Kings and join the Multan Sultans as Player.
Ahead of PSL 2020 drafts Multan Sultans retain Shahid Afridi as captain. Afridi played the initial part of PSL 2021 but missed the remainder of the rescheduled tournament due to a back injury.
Other Leagues
Afridi played for Southern Redbacks in the 2009–10 KFC Twenty20 Big Bash. He was part of Ruhuna Royals in 2012 Sri Lankan Premier League (SLPL) but he returned to Pakistan midway through the tournament to attend his ailing wife.
In January 2015, Afridi was signed by Northamptonshire Steelbacks for the 2015 T20 Blast where he reached to the final. In 2016, his services were acquired by Rangpur Riders for the fourth edition of Bangladesh Premier League.
Shahid Afridi was part of the St Kitts and Nevis Patriots in the third season of the Caribbean Premier League. He was included in the squad of Jamaica Tallawahs for the sixth edition of Caribbean Premier League but pulled out before the start of the tournament due to knee injury.
In 2018, Afridi was chosen as an icon player and Captain by the Paktia Panthers in the first season of Afghanistan Premier League. In June 2019, he was selected to play for the Brampton Wolves franchise team in the 2019 Global T20 Canada tournament. In July 2019, he was selected to play for the Belfast Titans in the inaugural edition of the Euro T20 Slam cricket tournament. However, the following month the tournament was cancelled. For the sixth edition of Bangladesh Premier League, he was included in the A+ category and was signed by Comilla Victorians. In November 2019, he was selected to play for the Dhaka Platoon in the 2019–20 Bangladesh Premier League. In October 2020, he was drafted by the Galle Gladiators for the inaugural edition of the Lanka Premier League.
In July 2021, he was picked by Rawalakot Hawks for the first edition of the Kashmir Premier League. He was also announced as the Brand Ambassador of the KPL. Initially he was picked by Muzaffarabad Tigers but later he parted ways with Muzaffarabad Tigers to join Rawalakot Hawks and led the team to the title. On 26 July 2021, Afridi was signed by Kathmandu Kings XI to play in Nepal’s Everest Premier League (EPL).
T10 franchise career
In 2017, Afridi was announced as the brand ambassador of newly inaugurated T10 League in UAE. He was also signed by Team Pakhtoons and was given the captaincy. He was signed by Qalandars in 2020 as the icon player for the franchise. He had previously signed a similar deal in 2019 but the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) decided against issuing NOCs to Pakistan players for the tournament.
Afridi was chosen as the brand ambassador for the Qatar Premier T10 Cricket League (QPL) which was launched in 2019 by Qatar Cricket Association.
He was signed by Bangla Tigers for the 2021–22 T10 League.
Playing style
Batting
His general style of batting is very aggressive and attack oriented. Due to this reason, Indian cricketer Ravi Shastri gave him the nickname "Boom Boom". Moreover, out of the seven fastest ODI centuries of all time, Afridi has produced three of them. Throughout his career, he had an ODI strike rate of 117 runs per 100 balls, the third highest in the game's history. This attitude has been transferred to Test cricket as well, with Afridi scoring at a relatively high strike rate of 86.97.
He is known for hitting long sixes, while his trademark shot is a cross-batted flick to the leg-side to a ball outside off stump. However, his aggressive style increases his risk of getting out and he is one of the most inconsistent batsmen in cricket. This is reflected by the fact that he is the only player to score more than 8,000 ODI runs at an average under 30 (23.57 to be exact). Afridi has moved about the batting order, and this lack of consistency has made it difficult for him to settle. In the Indian subcontinent, where the ball quickly loses its shine, he preferred to open the batting; however, elsewhere he would come to bat at number six or seven.
On 22 August 2017, in his 256th Twenty20 match, Afridi hit his first century in the format, scoring 101 for Hampshire in the 2017 NatWest t20 Blast against Derbyshire and setting the highest T20 score by a batsman at the County Ground, Derby in the process.
Bowling
Having started as a fast bowler, Afridi decided to start bowling spin after he was told he was throwing. He modelled himself on Pakistan leg-spinner Abdul Qadir. Afridi began his career as primarily a bowler, but after scoring the fastest century in his maiden ODI innings more was expected of him with the bat. In 2011, he said, "I consider myself a bowler first". He took 541 International wickets in his career, most of which were from the ODI format. While his stock ball is the leg break, his armoury also includes the googly and a "quicker one" which he can deliver in the style of a medium-pacer, reaching speeds of around .
On 23 August 2018, after a match winning all-round performance in the Caribbean Premier League for Barbados Tridents, Australian cricketer Steve Smith said that he tried to model the bowling action of Afridi. He praised Afridi, calling him "a terrific leg-spinner".
Philanthropy
In March 2014, Shahid Afridi established the Shahid Afridi Foundation which aims to provide healthcare and education facilities in Pakistan. He was named among the world's most charitable athletes by Do Something in August 2015.
UNICEF and many Pakistani authorities have taken Shahid Afridi on board for the anti-polio campaign in the tribal belt of Waziristan region.
Other records
Holds the record for taking the most wickets as captain in T20Is (40)
Most runs conceded by a bowler in his T20I career (2362)
The first ever player to score a hat-trick in 10-over format for Pakhtoons vs Maratha Arabians [3–19 (2.0)]; 2017 T10 Cricket League
Awards
On 23 March 2010, Afridi was awarded the Pride of Performance by President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari.
On 23 March 2018, he was awarded the Sitara-i-Imtiaz by President of Pakistan Mamnoon Hussain.
Bibliography
Controversies
In July 2016, Afridi said in an interview with BBC Urdu that there is no talent in Pakistan. This resulted in huge opposition against Afridi, while PCB issued a notice against him. Later, Afridi tried to clarify his statement by explaining that there is no competition among players in the present.
On 6 September 2018, in a Defence Day event at Rawalpindi, Afridi was reportedly caught on the camera chewing tobacco. He was grilled by the media for this. However, Afridi denied these claims and clarified that he had been eating fennel seeds and clove.
On 30 April 2019, Shahid Afridi was sued by Master Beverages for violating agreement. As per Master Beverages and Foods Limited, Shahid Afridi had signed a contract with Master Beverages as their brand ambassador, but also secretly signed an agreement to become a brand ambassador of another renowned beverage company. According to the agreement, the star cricketer cannot sign any other company and has instituted a lawsuit against the cricketer in Sindh High Court (SHC) for damages amounting to Rs 60,000,000 and recovery of a car.
In May 2019, Afridi stated that being a "conservative" and religious father, he had banned his daughters from playing outdoor sports. He said "feminists can say what they want... I’ve made my decision," in response to the criticism.
Confusion About Age
Shahid Afridi, who made his debut at 16 as per the records, had mentioned that he is 1975 born in his autobiography 'Game Changer'. "Also, for the record, I was just nineteen, and not sixteen like they claim. I was born in 1975. So, yes, the authorities stated my age incorrectly", he wrote in his book. Although that further created confusion because If he was born in 1975, it makes him 21 at the time of debut and not 19 as he writes.
But Afridi later clarified that his autobiography's first edition carried the wrong year.
Notes
References
External links
Shahid Afridi at Wisden
Shahid Afridi at Cricket.com.pk
Shahid Afridi Foundation
1975 births
Living people
Cricketers from Karachi
People from Khyber District
Recipients of the Pride of Performance
ACC Asian XI One Day International cricketers
ICC World XI One Day International cricketers
Pakistan One Day International cricketers
Pakistan Test cricketers
Pakistan Twenty20 International cricketers
Griqualand West cricketers
Habib Bank Limited cricketers
Karachi cricketers
Leicestershire cricketers
Derbyshire cricketers
South Australia cricketers
Hampshire cricketers
Cricketers at the 1999 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 2003 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 2007 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 2011 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 2015 Cricket World Cup
Pashtun people
Pakistani Sunni Muslims
Pakistan Test cricket captains
Pakistani cricket captains
Paktia Panthers cricketers
Cricketers who have taken five wickets on Test debut
Melbourne Renegades cricketers
Dhaka Dynamites cricketers
Pakistani cricketers
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Kent cricketers
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Recipients of Sitara-i-Imtiaz
Shahid
World XI Twenty20 International cricketers
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David Crockett (August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) was an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives and served in the Texas Revolution.
Crockett grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling. He was made a colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee and was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821. In 1827, he was elected to the U.S. Congress where he vehemently opposed many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, especially the Indian Removal Act. Crockett's opposition to Jackson's policies led to his defeat in the 1831 elections. He was re-elected in 1833, then narrowly lost in 1835, prompting his angry departure to Texas (then the Mexican state of Tejas) shortly thereafter. In early 1836, he took part in the Texas Revolution and died at the Battle of the Alamo, either in battle or executed after being captured by the Mexican Army.
Crockett became famous during his lifetime for larger-than-life exploits popularized by stage plays and almanacs. After his death, he continued to be credited with acts of mythical proportion. These led in the 20th century to television and film portrayals, and he became one of the best-known American folk heroes.
Family and early life
The Crocketts were of mostly French-Huguenot ancestry, although the family had settled in Ireland before migrating to the Americas. The earliest known paternal ancestor was Gabriel Gustave de Crocketagne, whose son Antoine de Saussure Peronette de Crocketagne was given a commission in the Household Troops under French King Louis XIV. Antoine married Louise de Saix and immigrated to Ireland with her, changing the family name to Crockett. Their son Joseph Louis was born in Ireland and married Sarah Stewart. Joseph and Sarah emigrated to New York, where their son William David was born in 1709. He married Elizabeth Boulay. William and Elizabeth's son David was born in Pennsylvania and married Elizabeth Hedge. They were the parents of William, David Jr., Robert, Alexander, James, Joseph, and John, the father of David Crockett who died at the Alamo.
John was born c. 1753 in Frederick County, Virginia. The family moved to Tryon County, North Carolina c. 1768. In 1776, the family moved to northeast Tennessee, in the area now known as Hawkins County. John was one of the Overmountain Men who fought in the Battle of Kings Mountain during the American Revolutionary War. He was away as a militia volunteer in 1777 when David and Elizabeth were killed at their home near today's Rogersville by Creeks and Chickamauga Cherokees led by war chief Dragging Canoe. John's brother Joseph was wounded in the skirmish. His brother James was taken prisoner and held for seventeen years.
John married Rebecca Hawkins in 1780. Their son David was born August 17, 1786, and they named him after John's father. David was born in what is now Greene County, Tennessee (at the time part of North Carolina), close to the Nolichucky River and near the community of Limestone. John continually struggled to make ends meet, and the Crocketts moved to a tract of land on Lick Creek in 1792. John sold that tract of land in 1794 and moved the family to Cove Creek, where he built a gristmill with partner Thomas Galbraith. A flood destroyed the gristmill and the Crockett homestead. The Crocketts then moved to Mossy Creek in Jefferson County, Tennessee, but John forfeited his property in bankruptcy in 1795. The family next moved on to property owned by a Quaker named John Canady. At Morristown in the Southwest Territory, John built a tavern on a stage coach route.
When David was 12 years old, his father indentured him to Jacob Siler to help with the Crockett family indebtedness. He helped tend Siler's cattle as a cowboy on a trip to near Natural Bridge in Virginia. He was well treated and paid for his services but, after several weeks in Virginia, he decided to return home to Tennessee. The next year, John enrolled his sons in school, but David played hookey after an altercation with a fellow student. Upon learning of this, John attempted to whip him but was outrun by his son. David then joined a cattle drive to Front Royal, Virginia for Jesse Cheek. Upon completion of that trip, he joined teamster Adam Myers on a trip to Gerrardstown, West Virginia. In between trips with Myers, he worked for farmer John Gray. After leaving Myers, he journeyed to Christiansburg, Virginia, where he apprenticed for the next four years with hatter Elijah Griffith.
In 1802, David journeyed by foot back to his father's tavern in Tennessee. His father was in debt to Abraham Wilson for $36 (), so David was hired out to Wilson to pay off the debt. Later, he worked off a $40 debt to John Canady. Once the debts were paid, John Crockett told his son that he was free to leave. David returned to Canady's employment, where he stayed for four years.
Marriages and children
Crockett fell in love with John Canady's niece Amy Summer, who was engaged to Canady's son Robert. While serving as part of the wedding party, Crockett met Margaret Elder. He persuaded her to marry him, and a marriage contract was drawn up on October 21, 1805. Margaret had also become engaged to another young man at the same time and married him instead.
He met Polly Finley and her mother Jean at a harvest festival. Although friendly towards him in the beginning, Jean Finley eventually felt Crockett was not the man for her daughter. Crockett declared his intentions to marry Polly, regardless of whether the ceremony was allowed to take place in her parents' home or had to be performed elsewhere. He arranged for a justice of the peace and took out a marriage license on August 12, 1806. On August 16, he rode to Polly's house with family and friends, determined to ride off with Polly to be married elsewhere. Polly's father pleaded with Crockett to have the wedding in the Finley home. Crockett agreed only after Jean apologized for her past treatment of him.
The newlyweds settled on land near Polly's parents, and their first child, John Wesley Crockett, who became a United States Congressman, was born July 10, 1807. Their second child, William Finley Crockett, was born November 25, 1808. In October 1811, the family relocated to Lincoln County. Their third child Margaret Finley (Polly) Crockett was born on November 25, 1812. The Crocketts then moved to Franklin County in 1813. He named the new home on Beans Creek "Kentuck". His wife died in March 1815, and Crockett asked his brother John and his sister-in-law to move in with him to help care for the children. That same year, he married the widow Elizabeth Patton, who had a daughter, Margaret Ann, and a son, George. David and Elizabeth's son, Robert Patton, was born September 16, 1816. Daughter Rebecca Elvira was born December 25, 1818. Daughter Matilda was born August 2, 1821.
David Crockett family tree
Tennessee militia service
Andrew Jackson was appointed major general of the Tennessee militia in 1802. The Fort Mims massacre occurred near Mobile, Mississippi Territory on August 30, 1813 and became a rallying cry for the Creek War. On September 20, Crockett left his family and enlisted as a scout for an initial term of 90 days with Francis Jones's Company of Mounted Rifleman, part of the Second Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Riflemen. They served under Colonel John Coffee in the war, marching south into present-day Alabama and taking an active part in the fighting. Crockett often hunted wild game for the soldiers, and felt better suited to that role than killing Creek warriors. He served until December 24, 1813.
The War of 1812 was being waged concurrently with the Creek War. After the Treaty of Fort Jackson in August 1814, Andrew Jackson, now with the U.S. Army, wanted the British forces ousted from Spanish Florida and asked for support from the Tennessee militia. Crockett re-enlisted as third sergeant for a six-month term with the Tennessee Mounted Gunmen under Captain John Cowan on September 28, 1814. Crockett's unit saw little of the main action because they were days behind the rest of the troops and were focused mostly on foraging for food. Crockett returned home in December. He was still on a military reserve status until March 1815, so he hired a young man to fulfill the remainder of his service.
Public career
In 1817, Crockett moved the family to new acreage in Lawrence County, where he first entered public office as a commissioner helping to configure the new county's boundaries. On November 25, the state legislature appointed him county justice of the peace. On March 27, 1818, he was elected lieutenant colonel of the Fifty-seventh Regiment of Tennessee Militia, defeating candidate Daniel Matthews for the position. By 1819, Crockett was operating multiple businesses in the area and felt his public responsibilities were beginning to consume so much of his time and energy that he had little left for either family or business. He resigned from the office of justice of the peace and from his position with the regiment.
Tennessee General Assembly
In 1821, he resigned as commissioner and successfully ran for a seat in the Tennessee General Assembly, representing Lawrence and Hickman counties. It was this election where Crockett honed his anecdotal oratory skills. He was appointed to the Committee of Propositions and Grievances on September 17, 1821, and served through the first session that ended November 17, as well as the special session called by the governor in the summer of 1822, ending on August 24. He favored legislation to ease the tax burden on the poor. Crockett spent his entire legislative career fighting for the rights of impoverished settlers who he felt dangled on the precipice of losing title to their land due to the state's complicated system of grants. He supported 1821 gubernatorial candidate William Carroll, over Andrew Jackson's endorsed candidate Edward Ward.
Less than two weeks after Crockett's 1821 election to the General Assembly, a flood of the Tennessee River destroyed Crockett's businesses. In November, Elizabeth's father Robert Patton deeded of his Carroll County property to Crockett. Crockett sold off most of the acreage to help settle his debts, and moved his family to the remaining acreage on the Obion River, which remained in Carroll County until 1825 when the boundaries were reconfigured and put it in Gibson County. In 1823, he ran against Andrew Jackson's nephew-in-law William Edward Butler and won a seat in the General Assembly representing the counties of Carroll, Humphreys, Perry, Henderson and Madison. He served in the first session, which ran from September through the end of November 1823, and in the second session that ran September through the end of November 1824, championing the rights of the impoverished farmers. During Andrew Jackson's election to the United States Senate in 1823, Crockett backed his opponent John Williams.
United States House of Representatives
On October 25, 1824, Crockett notified his constituents of his intention to run in the 1825 election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost that election to incumbent Adam Rankin Alexander. A chance meeting in 1826 gained him the encouragement of Memphis mayor Marcus Brutus Winchester to try again to win a seat in Congress. The Jackson Gazette published a letter from Crockett on September 15, 1826 announcing his intention of again challenging Rankin, and stating his opposition to the policies of President John Quincy Adams and Secretary of State Henry Clay and to Rankin's position on the cotton tariff. Militia veteran William Arnold also entered the race, and Crockett easily defeated both political opponents for the 1827–29 term. He arrived in Washington, D.C. and took up residence at Mrs. Ball's Boarding House, where a number of other legislators lived when Congress was in session. Jackson was elected as president in 1828. Crockett continued his legislative focus on settlers getting a fair deal for land titles, offering H.R. 27 amendment to a bill sponsored by James K. Polk.
Crockett was re-elected for the 1829–31 session, once again defeating Adam Rankin Alexander. He introduced H.R. 185 amendment to the land bill on January 29, 1830, but it was defeated on May 3. On February 25, 1830, he introduced a resolution to abolish the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York because he felt that it was public money going to benefit the sons of wealthy men. He spoke out against Congress giving $100,000 to the widow of Stephen Decatur, citing that Congress was not empowered to do that. He opposed Jackson's 1830 Indian Removal Act and was the only member of the Tennessee delegation to vote against it. Cherokee chief John Ross sent him a letter on January 13, 1831 expressing his thanks for Crockett's vote. His vote was not popular with his own district, and he was defeated in the 1831 election by William Fitzgerald.
Crockett ran against Fitzgerald again in the 1833 election and was returned to Congress, serving until 1835. On January 2, 1834, he introduced the land title resolution H.R. 126, but it never made it as far as being debated on the House floor. He was defeated for re-election in the August 1835 election by Adam Huntsman. During his last term in Congress, he collaborated with Kentucky Congressman Thomas Chilton to write his autobiography, which was published by E. L. Carey and A. Hart in 1834 as A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, Written by Himself, and he went east to promote the book. In 1836, newspapers published the now-famous quotation attributed to Crockett upon his return to his home state:
I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done; but if not, they might go to hell, and I would go to Texas.
Texas Revolution
By December 1834, Crockett was writing to friends about moving to Texas if Jackson's chosen successor Martin Van Buren was elected president. The next year, he discussed with his friend Benjamin McCulloch raising a company of volunteers to take to Texas in the expectation that a revolution was imminent. His departure to Texas was delayed by a court appearance in the last week of October as co-executor of his deceased father-in-law's estate; he finally left his home near Rutherford in West Tennessee with three other men on November 1, 1835 to explore Texas. His youngest child Matilda later wrote that she distinctly remembered the last time that she saw her father:
He was dressed in his hunting suit, wearing a coonskin cap, and carried a fine rifle presented to him by friends in Philadelphia.... He seemed very confident the morning he went away that he would soon have us all to join him in Texas.
Crockett traveled with 30 well-armed men to Jackson, Tennessee, where he gave a speech from the steps of the Madison County courthouse, and they arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas on November 12, 1835. The local newspapers reported that hundreds of people swarmed into town to get a look at Crockett, and a group of leading citizens put on a dinner in his honor that night at the Jeffries Hotel. Crockett spoke "mainly to the subject of Texan independence," as well as Washington politics.
Crockett arrived in Nacogdoches, Texas in early January 1836. On January 14, he and 65 other men signed an oath before Judge John Forbes to the Provisional Government of Texas for six months: "I have taken the oath of government and have enrolled my name as a volunteer and will set out for the Rio Grande in a few days with the volunteers from the United States." Each man was promised about of land as payment. On February 6, he and five other men rode into San Antonio de Bexar and camped just outside the town.
Crockett arrived at the Alamo Mission in San Antonio on February 8. A Mexican army arrived on February 23 led by General Antonio López de Santa Anna, surprising the men garrisoned in the Alamo, and the Mexican soldiers immediately initiated a siege. Santa Anna ordered his artillery to keep up a near-constant bombardment. The guns were moved closer to the Alamo each day, increasing their effectiveness. On February 25, 200–300 Mexican soldiers crossed the San Antonio River and took cover in abandoned shacks approximately from the Alamo walls. The soldiers intended to use the huts as cover to establish another artillery position, although many Texians assumed that they actually were launching an assault on the fort. Several men volunteered to burn the huts. To provide cover, the Alamo cannons fired grapeshot at the Mexican soldiers, and Crockett and his men fired rifles, while other defenders reloaded extra weapons for them to use in maintaining a steady fire. The battle was over within 90 minutes, and the Mexican soldiers retreated. There were limited stores of powder and shot inside the Alamo, and Alamo commander William Barret Travis ordered the artillery to stop returning fire on February 26 so as to conserve precious ammunition. Crockett and his men were encouraged to keep shooting, as they were unusually effective.
As the siege progressed, Travis sent many messages asking for reinforcements. Several messengers were sent to James Fannin who commanded the group of Texian soldiers at Presidio La Bahia in Goliad, TX. Fannin decided that it was too risky to reinforce the Alamo, although historian Thomas Ricks Lindley concludes that up to 50 of Fannin's men left his command to go to Bexar. These men would have reached Cibolo Creek on the afternoon of March 3, from the Alamo, where they joined another group of men who also planned to join the garrison.
There was a skirmish between Mexican and Texian troops that same night outside the Alamo. Historian Walter Lord speculates that the Texians were creating a diversion to allow their courier John Smith to evade Mexican pickets. However, Alamo survivor Susannah Dickinson said in 1876 that Travis sent out three men shortly after dark on March 3, probably a response to the arrival of Mexican reinforcements. The three men—including Crockett—were sent to find Fannin. Lindley states that Crockett and one of the other men found the force of Texians waiting along Cibolo Creek just before midnight; they had advanced to within of the Alamo. Just before daylight on March 4, part of the Texian force managed to break through the Mexican lines and enter the Alamo. A second group was driven across the prairie by Mexican cavalry.
The siege ended on March 6 when the Mexican army attacked just before dawn while the defenders were sleeping. The daily artillery bombardment had been suspended, perhaps a ploy to encourage the natural human reaction to a cessation of constant strain. But the garrison awakened and the final fight began. Most of the noncombatants gathered in the church sacristy for safety. According to Dickinson, Crockett paused briefly in the chapel to say a prayer before running to his post. The Mexican soldiers climbed up the north outer walls of the Alamo complex, and most of the Texians fell back to the barracks and the chapel, as previously planned. Crockett and his men, however, were too far from the barracks to take shelter and were the last remaining group to be in the open. They defended the low wall in front of the church, using their rifles as clubs and relying on knives, as the action was too furious to allow reloading. After a volley and a charge with bayonets, Mexican soldiers pushed the few remaining defenders back toward the church.
The Battle of the Alamo lasted almost 90 minutes, and all of the defenders were killed. Santa Anna ordered his men to take their bodies to a nearby stand of trees, where they were stacked together and wood piled on top. That evening, they lit a fire and burned their bodies to ashes. The ashes were left undisturbed until February 1837, when Juan Seguin and his cavalry returned to Bexar to examine the remains. A local carpenter created a simple coffin, and ashes from the funeral pyres were placed inside. The names of Travis, Crockett, and Bowie were inscribed on the lid. The coffin is thought to have been buried in a peach tree grove, but the spot was not marked and can no longer be identified.
Death
All that is certain about the fate of David Crockett is that he died at the Alamo on the morning of March 6, 1836 at age 49. Accounts from survivors of the battle differ on the manner of Crockett's death, with stories ranging from Crockett putting up a heroic last stand to the account that he surrendered along with several other men and was executed. To further confusion, historians have been able to back up opposing theories with “voluminous evidence”.
Controversy
The popular mythology of Crockett's death in American culture is one of a heroic last stand, a tale that is backed up by some historical evidence. For example, a former African-American slave named Ben, who had acted as cook for one of Santa Anna's officers, maintained that Crockett's body was found in the barracks surrounded by "no less than sixteen Mexican corpses", with Crockett's knife buried in one of them. There is, however, historical evidence countering the popular myth, with stories of a Crockett surrender and execution circulating as far back as just a few weeks after the battle.
The counter myth picked up historical steam, when, in 1955, Jesús Sánchez Garza discovered the memoirs of José Enrique de la Peña, a Mexican officer present at the Battle of the Alamo, and self-published it as La Rebelión de TexasManuscrito Inédito de 1836 por un Oficial de Santa Anna. Texas A&M University Press published the English translation in 1975 With Santa Anna in Texas: A Personal Narrative of the Revolution. The English publication caused a scandal within the United States, as it asserted that Crockett did not die in battle. The translator of the English-publication, Carmen Perry, the former librarian of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, was harassed with anonymous letters and intimidating phone calls by Crockett loyalists who considered the mere suggestion that Crockett had not died fighting blasphemous.
Some have questioned the validity of the text. The author and retired firefighter, William Groneman III, posited that the journals were made up of several different types of paper from several different paper manufacturers, all cut down to fit. Long-time John Wayne enthusiast, Joseph Musso, also questioned the validity of de la Peña's diary, basing his suspicions on the timing of the diary's release, and the fact that historical interest in the topic rose around the same time as the Walt Disney mini-series Davy Crockett was released in 1955. Some questions were answered when:
Finally, in 2001, archivist David Gracy published a detailed analysis of the manuscript, including lab results. He found, among other things, that the paper and ink were of a type used by the Mexican army in the 1830s, and the handwriting matched that on other documents in the Mexican military archives that were written or signed by de la Peña.
As for those who have questioned de la Peña's ability to identify any of the Alamo defenders by name, historians believe that de la Peña likely witnessed or was told about executions of the Alamo survivors. And while some claim neither he nor his comrades would have known who those men were, others conclude that the "enormous weight of evidence" is in favor of the surrender-execution hypothesis. To further controversy, equal evidence is available for the "heroic last stand" story, with several survivors and first-hand witnesses to the battle claiming Crockett fought to the death.
Legacy
One of Crockett's sayings, which were published in almanacs between 1835 and 1856 (along with those of Daniel Boone and Kit Carson), was: "Always be sure you are right, then go ahead."
While serving in the United States House of Representatives, Crockett became a Freemason. He entrusted his masonic apron to a friend in Tennessee before leaving for Texas, and it was inherited by the friend's descendant in Kentucky.
In 1967 the U.S. Postal Service issued a 5-cent stamp commemorating Davy Crockett.
Namesakes
Tennessee
Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park, Greene County
David Crockett State Park, Lawrence County
Crockett County, Tennessee; its county seat is Alamo
David Crockett High School, Jonesborough
Texas
Crockett County
Crockett, Texas, Houston County
Crockett High School, Austin independent school District
Davy Crockett Lake, Fannin County
Davy Crockett Loop, Prairies and Pineywoods Wildlife Trail – East
Crockett Middle School, Amarillo
Davy Crockett National Forest, Angelina County
Davy Crockett School, Dallas independent school District
Crockett Elementary School, Abilene independent school District, Abilene, Texas, (closed 2002.)
Crockett Street, a major thoroughfare in Downtown San Antonio
Fort Crockett, Galveston County
Miscellaneous
M28 Davy Crockett Weapon System: a small Nuclear weapons system, the smallest developed by the U.S. which could be fired from a light vehicle, or from a tripod mounted launcher.
Crockett park north of downtown San Antonio
Monuments
Alamo Cenotaph, San Antonio, sculptor Pompeo Coppini, west panel of the Cenotaph features a Crockett statue and a statue of William B. Travis in front of other Alamo defenders
David Crockett Statue, Ozona, Texas, sculptor William M. McVey
LIfe-size statue Colonel David Crockett, Public Square, Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, W.M.Dean Marble Company of Columbia
In popular culture
Television
Walt Disney adapted Crockett's stories into a television miniseries titled Davy Crockett, which aired in 1954 and 1955 on Walt Disney's Disneyland. The series popularized the image of Crockett, portrayed by Fess Parker, wearing a coonskin cap, and originated the song "The Ballad of Davy Crockett". The first three parts of the series were edited into a feature-length movie for theaters.
Crockett's stories were adapted by French animation studio Studios Animage into a 1994 animated series titled Davy Crockett.
A 2009 episode of MythBusters tested whether Crockett could split a bullet in half on an axe in a tree 40 yards away. The myth was declared "Confirmed".
Film
In films, Crockett has been played by:
Charles K. French, Davy Crockett – In Hearts United (1909), silent
Hobart Bosworth, Davy Crockett (1910), silent
Dustin Farnum, Davy Crockett (1916), silent
Cullen Landis (Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo, 1926, silent)
Jack Perrin (The Painted Stallion, 1937)
Lane Chandler (Heroes of the Alamo, 1937)
Robert Barrat (Man of Conquest, 1939)
Trevor Bardette (The Man from the Alamo, 1953)
Arthur Hunnicutt (The Last Command, 1955)
Fess Parker (Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, 1955, and Davy Crockett and the River Pirates, 1956, both on Walt Disney's Disneyland)
James Griffith (The First Texan, 1956)
John Wayne (The Alamo, 1960)
Brian Keith (The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory, 1987)
Merrill Connally (Alamo: The Price of Freedom, 1988)
Johnny Cash (Davy Crockett: Rainbow in the Thunder, 1988)
Tim Dunigan (Davy Crockett: Rainbow in the Thunder, Davy Crockett: A Natural Man, Davy Crockett: Guardian Spirit, Davy Crockett: Letter to Polly, 1988–1989)
David Zucker (The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, 1991 [a very small cameo role])
John Schneider (James A. Michener's Texas, 1994)
Scott Wickware (Dear America: A Line in the Sand, 2000)
Justin Howard (The Anarchist Cookbook, 2002)
Billy Bob Thornton (The Alamo, 2004)"
Theatre
Davy Crockett (1872), popular touring play of its time, by Frank Murdoch
Davy Crockett, musical play (unfinished), January to April 1938, Kurt Weill
Prose fiction
Crockett appears in at least two short alternate history works: "Chickasaw Slave" by Judith Moffett in Mike Resnick's anthology Alternate Presidents (1992), where Crockett is the seventh President of the United States, and "Empire" by William Sanders in Harry Turtledove's anthology Alternate Generals II (2002) where Crockett fights for Emperor Napoleon I of Louisiana in a conflict analogous to the War of 1812. Crockett is also a character in Gore Vidal's novel Burr as a congressman from Tennessee.
Comics
Columbia Features syndicated a comic strip, Davy Crockett, Frontiersman, from June 20, 1955 until 1959. Stories were by France Herron and the artwork was ghosted in early 1956 by Jack Kirby.
Music
Crockett is named explicitly in Italian TV series theme Furia cavallo del West, sung by Mal singer, that represents the imaginary adventures of a big black horse in the American West, a hero for young generations of the 70s. One of the little singers says (in Italian) I'm Davy Crockett.
See also
List of Freemasons
"The Ballad of Davy Crockett"
Timeline of the Texas Revolution
Notes
Footnotes
Citations
References
. Reprint. Originally published: New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958
Bibliography
Numerous books have been written about David Crockett, including the first one that bears his name as its author.
External links
Official site of the descendants of David Crockett
First Hand Alamo Accounts
1786 births
1836 deaths
19th-century American writers
American autobiographers
American Freemasons
American hunters
American militiamen in the War of 1812
American people of French descent
American people of Scotch-Irish descent
Army of the Republic of Texas officers
Formerly missing people
Jacksonian members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee
Male murder victims
Missing person cases in Texas
National Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee
Native Americans' rights activists
People from Greene County, Tennessee
People of the Creek War
People of the Texas Revolution
Presbyterians from Tennessee
Tennessee Jacksonians
Tennessee National Republicans
Members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee
Activists from Tennessee
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Spoken English shows great variation across regions where it is the predominant language. For example, the United Kingdom has the largest variation of accents of any country, meaning that there is no single ‘British accent’. This article provides an overview of the numerous identifiable variations in pronunciation; such distinctions usually derive from the phonetic inventory of local dialects, as well as from broader differences in the Standard English of different primary-speaking populations.
Accent is the part of dialect concerning local pronunciation. Vocabulary and grammar are described elsewhere; see List of dialects of the English language.
Secondary English speakers tend to carry over the intonation and phonetics of their mother tongue in English speech. For more details, see Non-native pronunciations of English.
Primary English-speakers show great variability in terms of regional accents. Some, such as Pennsylvania Dutch English, are easily identified by key characteristics, but others are more obscure or easily confused. Broad regions can possess subforms as identified below; for instance, towns located less than from the city of Manchester, such as Bolton, Rochdale, Oldham and Salford, each have distinct accents, all of which together comprise the broader accent of Lancashire. Those sub-dialects are very similar to one another, but non-local listeners can identify firm differences. On the other side of the spectrum, Australia has a "General accent" that is virtually consistent over thousands of kilometers.
English accents can differ enough to create room for misunderstandings. For example, the pronunciation of pearl in some variants of Scottish English can sound like the entirely unrelated word petal to an American ear.
For a summary of the differences between accents, see International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects.
Overview
English dialects differ greatly in their pronunciation of open vowels. In Received Pronunciation, there are four open back vowels, , but in General American there are only three, , and in most dialects of Canadian English only two, . In addition, which words have which vowel varies between dialects. Words like bath and cloth have the vowels in Received Pronunciation, but in General American. The table above shows some of these dialectal differences.
Britain and Ireland
Accents and dialects vary widely across Great Britain, Ireland and nearby smaller islands. The UK has the most local accents of any English speaker country. As such, a single "British accent" does not exist. However, someone could be said to have an English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish accent, although these all have many different sub-types.
England
There are considerable variations within the accents of English across England, one of the most obvious being the trap–bath split of the southern half of the country.
Two main sets of accents are spoken in the West Country, namely Cornish and West Country spoken primarily in the counties of Devon, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Bristol, Dorset (not as common in Dorset), and Wiltshire (again, less common in eastern Wiltshire). However, a range of variations can be heard within different parts of the West Country: the Bristolian dialect is distinctive from the accent heard in Gloucestershire (especially south of Cheltenham), for example.
The Cornwall accent has an east–west variation with the East of the county having influences from West country English and the West of the county having direct influences from the Cornish language.
There is also great variation within Greater London, with various accents such as Cockney, Estuary English, Multicultural London English and Received Pronunciation being found all throughout the region and the Home Counties.
Other accents are those of
the East Midlands (Derby, Leicester and Rutland, Lincoln, Northampton, and Nottingham),
East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire) and
the Home Counties (typically Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Surrey, Kent, Hampshire). The Essex accent has an east–west variation with the county's west having Estuary English speech features and the county's east having the traditional Essaxon features.
A range of accents are spoken in the West Midlands (in the major towns and conurbations (The Black Country, Birmingham, Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent and Wolverhampton) and in rural areas (such as in Herefordshire and south Worcestershire).
On 20 February 2019, the New York Times published a quiz that maps the geographical differences between British and Irish dialects.
Northern England
The accents of Northern England have a range of regional variations. Cumbria has regional variants in Western Cumbria (Workington), Southern Cumbria (Barrow-in-Furness) and Carlisle.
Modern Northumbrian has local variants in Northern Northumberland (Berwick-upon-Tweed), Eastern Northumberland (Ashington) and Newcastle, Sunderland and Mid-County Durham and Southern County Durham. A specialist dialect called Pitmatic is within this group, found across the region, it includes terms specific to coal mining.
Yorkshire is also distinctive, having regional variants around Leeds, Bradford, Hull, Middlesbrough, Sheffield, and York. Although many Yorkshire accents sound similar, accents in areas around Hull and Middlesbrough are markedly different. Due to this, the Middlesbrough accent is sometimes grouped with Modern Northumbrian accents being a mid-way between the two regions.
The Hull accent's rhythm is more like that of northern Lincolnshire than that of the rural East Riding, perhaps due to migration from Lincolnshire to the city during its industrial growth. One feature that it does share with the surrounding rural area is that an /aɪ/ sound in the middle of a word often becomes an /ɑː/: for example, "five" may sound like "fahve", "time" like "tahme".
Historic Lancashire, with regional variants in Bolton, Burnley, Blackburn, Manchester, Preston, Blackpool, Liverpool and Wigan. Many of the Lancashire accents may sound similar to outsiders, with the exception of Manchester and Wigan, where an older dialect has been maintained.
The Liverpool accent, known as Scouse, is an exception to the Lancashire regional variant of English; it has also spread to some of the surrounding towns. Before the 1840s, Liverpool's accent was similar to others in Lancashire, though with some distinct features due to the city's proximity to Wales. However, the city's population of around 60,000 was swelled in the 1840s by the arrival of around 300,000 Irish refugees escaping the Great Famine, as Liverpool was England's main Atlantic port and a popular departure point for people leaving for a new life in the United States. While many of the Irish refugees moved away, a vast amount remained in Liverpool and permanently influenced the local accent.
Scotland
The regional accents of Scottish English generally draw on the phoneme inventory of the dialects of Modern Scots, a language spoken by around 30% of the Scottish population with characteristic vowel realisations due to the Scottish vowel length rule.
Highland English accents are more strongly influenced by Scottish Gaelic than other forms of Scottish English.
Wales
The accents of English in Wales are strongly influenced by the phonology of the Welsh language, which more than 20% of the population of Wales speak as their first or second language. The North Wales accent is distinct from South Wales; North East Wales is influenced by Scouse and Cheshire accents; while South East Wales accents are influenced by West Country accents. The Wenglish of the South Wales Valleys shows a deep cross-fertilisation between the two.
The Cardiff dialect and accent is also quite distinctive from that of the South Wales Valleys, primarily:
Rounding of the second element of to
here pronounced or in broader accents
A closer pronunciation of as in love and other
is widely realised as , giving a pronunciation of Cardiff as Kahdiff
Isle of Man
Manx English has its own distinctive accent, influenced to some extent by the Lancashire dialect and to a lesser extent by some variant of Irish English.
Ireland
Ireland has several main groups of accents, including (1) the accents of Ulster, with a strong influence from Scotland as well as the underlying Gaelic linguistic stratum, which in that province approaches the Gaelic of Scotland, (2) those of Dublin and surrounding areas on the east coast where English has been spoken since the earliest period of colonisation from Britain, and (3) the various accents of west, midlands and south.
Ulster
The Ulster accent has two main sub accents, namely Mid Ulster English and Ulster Scots. The language is spoken throughout the nine counties of Ulster, and in some northern areas of bordering counties such as Louth and Leitrim. It bears many similarities to Scottish English through influence from the Ulster varieties of Scots.
Some characteristics of the Ulster accent include:
As in Scotland, the vowels and are merged, so that look and Luke are homophonous. The vowel is a high central rounded vowel, .
The diphthong is pronounced approximately , but wide variation exists, especially between social classes in Belfast
In Belfast, is a monophthong in open syllables (e.g. day ) but an ingliding diphthong in closed syllables (e.g. daze ). But the monophthong remains when inflectional endings are added, thus daze contrasts with days .
The alveolar stops become dental before , e.g. tree and spider
often undergoes flapping to before an unstressed syllable, e.g. eighty
Connacht, Leinster, and Munster
The accent of these three provinces fluctuates greatly from the flat tone of the midlands counties of Laois, Kildare, and Offaly, the perceived sing-song of Cork and Kerry, to the soft accents of Mayo and Galway.
Historically the Dublin City and county area, parts of Wicklow and Louth, came under heavy exclusive influence from the first English settlements (known as The Pale). It remained until Independence from Britain as the biggest concentration of English influence in the whole island.
Some Cork accents have a unique lyrical intonation. Every sentence typically ends in the trademark elongated tail-off on the last word. In Cork heavier emphasis yet is put on the brrr sound to the letter R. This is usually the dialect in northern parts of Cork City.
Similar to the Cork accent but without the same intonation, Kerry puts even heavier emphasis on the brrr sound to the letter R. For example: the word Forty. Throughout the south this word is pronounced whereby the r exhibits the typified Irish brrr. In Kerry however (especially in rural areas) the roll on the r is enforced with vibrations from the tongue (not unlike Scottish here). "Are you?" becomes a co-joined "A-rrou?" single tongue flutter (esp. in rural areas). This extra emphasis on R is also seen in varying measures through parts of West Limerick and West Cork in closer proximity to Kerry.
Another feature in the Kerry accent is the S before the consonant. True to its Gaelic origins in a manner similar to parts of Connacht "s" maintains the shh sound as in shop or sheep. The word Start becomes "Shtart". Stop becomes Shtop.
Irish Travellers
Irish Travellers have a very distinct accent closely related to a rural Hiberno-English, particularly the English of south-eastern Ireland. Many Irish Travellers who were born in parts of Dublin or Britain have the accent in spite of it being strikingly different from the local accents in those regions. They also have their own language, Shelta, which strongly links in with their dialect/accent of English.
North America
North American English is a collective term for the dialects of the United States and Canada; it does not include the varieties of Caribbean English spoken in the West Indies.
Rhoticity: Most North American English accents differ from Received Pronunciation and some other British dialects by being rhotic; the rhotic consonant is pronounced before consonants and at the end of syllables, and the r-colored vowel is used as a syllable nucleus. For example, while the words hard and singer would be pronounced and in Received Pronunciation, they would be pronounced and in General American. (Exceptions are certain traditional accents found in eastern New England, New York City, and the Southern United States, plus African-American English.)
Mergers before : R-coloring has led to some vowel mergers before historic that do not happen in most other native dialects. In many North American accents, Mary, merry and marry sound the same (Mary–marry–merry merger), but they have the vowels , , , respectively, in RP. Similarly, nearer rhymes with mirror (mirror–nearer merger), though the two have different vowels in RP: and . Other mergers before occur in various North American dialects.
Mergers of the low back vowels: Other North American mergers that are absent in Received Pronunciation are the merger of the vowels of caught and cot ( and in RP) in many accents, and the merger of father (RP ) and bother (RP ) in almost all.
Flat a: Most North American accents lack the so-called trap–bath split found in Southern England: Words like ask, answer, grass, bath, staff, dance are pronounced with the short-a of trap, not with the broad A of father heard in Southern England as well as in most of the Southern hemisphere. (In North America, the vowel of father has merged with that of lot and bother, see above.) However, related to the trap–bath split, North American dialects have a feature known as /æ/ tensing. This results in /æ/ in some environments, particularly nasals to be raised and even diphthongized, typically transcribed as . Thus, answer is typically pronounced as rather than .
Flapping of and : In North American English, and both become the alveolar flap after a stressed syllable and between vowels or syllabic consonants, making the words latter and ladder homophones, either as or .
The United States does not have a concrete 'standard' accent in the same way that Britain has Received Pronunciation. Nonetheless, a form of speech known to linguists as General American is perceived by many Americans to be "accent-less", meaning a person who speaks in such a manner does not appear to be from anywhere particular. The region of the United States that most resembles this is the central Midwest, specifically eastern Nebraska (including Omaha and Lincoln), southern and central Iowa (including Des Moines), parts of Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and western Illinois (including Peoria and the Quad Cities, but not the Chicago area).
Canada
Three major dialect areas can be found in Canada: Western/Central Canada, the Maritimes, and Newfoundland.
The phonology of West/Central Canadian English, also called General Canadian, is broadly similar to that of the Western US, except for the following features:
The diphthongs and are raised to approximately and before voiceless consonants; thus, for example, the vowel sound of out is different from that of loud . This feature is known as Canadian raising. The is even more raised toward central Canada (Ontario), closer to .
The short a of bat is more open than almost everywhere else in North America . The other front lax vowels and , too, can be lowered and/or retracted. This phenomenon has been labelled the Canadian Shift.
The pronunciation of certain words shows a British influence. For instance, shone is ; been is often ; lieutenant is ; process can be ; etc.
Words like drama, pajamas/pyjamas, pasta tend to have rather than ~. Words like sorrow, Florida, orange have rather than ; therefore, sorry rhymes with story rather than with starry.
United States
West Indies and Bermuda
For discussion, see:
Bahamian English
Bermudian English
Caribbean English
Jamaican English
Trinidadian English
Oceania
Australia
Australian English is relatively homogeneous when compared to British and American English. There is however some regional variation between the states, particularly in regard to South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Three main varieties of Australian English are spoken according to linguists: Broad Australian, General Australian and Cultivated Australian. They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They can, but do not always reflect the social class, education and urban or rural background of the speaker.
Australian Aboriginal English refers to the various varieties of the English language used by Indigenous Australians. These varieties, which developed differently in different parts of Australia, vary along a continuum, from forms close to General Australian to more nonstandard forms. There are distinctive features of accent, grammar, words and meanings, as well as language use.
The furthest extent of the Aboriginal dialect is Australian Kriol language, which is not mutually intelligible with General Australian English.
On the Torres Strait Islands, a distinctive dialect known as Torres Strait English is spoken.
In Australian English, pronunciations vary regionally according to the type of vowel that occurs before the sounds , , , , and . In words like "chance", "plant", "branch", "sample" and "demand", the vast majority of Australians use the short /æ/ vowel from the word "cat". In South Australian English however there is a high proportion of people who use the broad /aː/ vowel from the word "cart" in these words.
Centring diphthongs, which are the vowels that occur in words like ear, beard and air, sheer. In Western Australian English there is a tendency for centring diphthongs to be pronounced as full diphthongs. Those in the eastern states will tend to pronounce "fear" and "sheer" without any jaw movement, while the westerners would pronounce them like "fia" and "shia", respectively which slightly resembles South African English but in a dialect different from New Zealand English .
New Zealand
The New Zealand accent is most similar to Australian accents (particularly those of Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and South Australia) but is distinguished from these accents by the presence of three "clipped" vowels, slightly resembling South African English. Phonetically, these are centralised or raised versions of the short "i", "e" and "a" vowels, which in New Zealand are close to , and respectively rather than , and . New Zealand pronunciations are often popularly represented outside New Zealand by writing "fish and chips" as "fush and chups", "yes" as "yiss", "sixty-six" as "suxty-sux". Scottish English influence is most evident in the southern regions of New Zealand, notably Dunedin. Another difference between New Zealand and Australian English is the length of the vowel in words such as "dog", and "job" which are longer than in Australian English which shares the short and staccato pronunciation shared with British English. There is also a tendency in New Zealand English, also found in some but not all Australian English, to add a schwa between some grouped consonants in words, such that — for example — "shown" and "thrown" may be pronounced "showun" and "throwun".
Geographical variations appear slight, and mainly confined to individual special local words. One group of speakers, however, hold a recognised place as "talking differently": the regions of Otago and especially Southland, both in the south of the South Island, harbour a "Celtic fringe" of people speaking with what is known as the "Southland burr" in which R is pronounced with a soft burr, particularly in words that rhyme with 'nurse'. The area formed a traditional repository of immigration from Scotland. Some sections of the main urban areas of Auckland and Wellington also show a stronger influence of Pacific island (e.g., Samoan) pronunciations than most of the country.
The trilled 'r' is also used by some Māori, who may also pronounce 't' and 'k' sounds without aspiration, striking other English speakers as similar to 'd' and 'g'. This is also encountered in South African English, especially among Afrikaans speakers.
Norfolk Island and Pitcairn
The English spoken in the isolated Pacific islands of Norfolk and Pitcairn shows evidence of the islands' long isolation from the world. In the case of Pitcairn, the local creole (Pitkern) shows strong evidence of its rural English 19th century origins, with an accent which has traces of both the English southwest and Geordie. The Norfolk Island equivalent, Norfuk, was greatly influenced in its development by Pitkern. The accents heard in the islands when English is used are similarly influenced but in a much milder way. In the case of Norfolk Island, Australian English is the primary influence, producing an accent which is like a softened version of an Australian accent. The Pitcairn accent is for the most part largely indistinguishable from the New Zealand accent.
Africa and the Atlantic
South Atlantic
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands have a large non-native born population, mainly from Britain, but also from Saint Helena. In rural areas, the Falkland accent tends to be stronger. The accent has resemblances to both Australia-NZ English, and that of Norfolk in England, and contains a number of Spanish loanwords.
Saint Helena
"Saints", as Saint Helenan islanders are called, have a variety of different influences on their accent. To outsiders, the accent has resemblances to the accents of South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
"Saint" is not just a different pronunciation of English, it also has its own distinct words. So 'bite' means spicy, as in full of chillies; 'us' is used instead of 'we' ('us has been shopping'); and 'done' is used to generate a past tense, hence 'I done gorn fishing' ('I have been fishing').
Television is a reasonably recent arrival there, and is only just beginning to have an effect. American terms are becoming more common, e.g. 'chips' for crisps.
Southern Africa
South Africa
South Africa has 11 official languages, one of which is English. Accents vary significantly between ethnic and language groups. Home-language English speakers (Black, White, Indian and Coloured) in South Africa have an accent that generally resembles British Received Pronunciation (modified with varying degrees of Germanic inflection due to Afrikaans).
The Coloured community is generally bilingual; however, English accents are strongly influenced by primary mother-tongue (Afrikaans or English). A range of accents can be seen, with the majority of Coloureds showing a strong Afrikaans inflection. Similarly, Afrikaners (and Cape Coloureds), both descendant of mainly Dutch settlers, tend to pronounce English phonemes with a strong Afrikaans inflection. The English accents of both related groups are significantly different and easily distinguishable (primarily because of prevalent code-switching among the majority of Coloured English speakers, particularly in the Western Cape of South Africa). The range of accents found among English-speaking Coloureds (from the distinctive "Cape Flats or Coloured English" to the standard "colloquial" South African English accent) are of special interest. Geography and education levels play major roles therein.
Black Africans generally speak English as a second language, and accent is strongly influenced by mother-tongue (particularly Bantu languages). However, urban middle-class black Africans have developed an English accent, with similar inflection as first-language English speakers. Within this ethnic group variations exist: most Nguni (Xhosa, Zulu, Swazi and Ndebele) speakers have a distinct accent, with the pronunciation of words like 'the' and 'that' as would 'devil' and 'dust', respectively; and words like 'rice' as 'lice'. This may be as a result of the inadequacy of 'r' in the languages. Sotho (Tswana, Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho) speakers have a similar accent, with slight variations. Tsonga and Venda speakers have very similar accents with far less intonation than Ngunis and Sothos. Some Black speakers have no distinction between the 'i' in determine and the one in decline, pronouncing it similarly to the one in 'mine'.
Black, Indian and Coloured students educated in former Model C schools or at formerly white tertiary institutions will generally adopt a similar accent to their white English-home-language speaking classmates. Code-switching and the "Cape Flats" accent are becoming popular among white learners in public schools within Cape Town.
South African accents also vary between major cities (particularly Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg) and provinces (regions). Accent variation is also observed within respective citiesfor instance, Johannesburg, where the northern suburbs (Parkview, Parkwood, Parktown North, Saxonwold, etc.) tend to be less strongly influenced by Afrikaans. These suburbs are more affluent and populated by individuals with tertiary education and higher incomes. The accents of native English speakers from the southern suburbs (Rosettenville, Turffontein, etc.) tend to be more strongly influenced by Afrikaans. These suburbs are populated by tradesmen and factory workers, with lower incomes. The extent of Afrikaans influence is explained by the fact that Afrikaans urbanisation would historically have been from failed marginal farms or failing economies in rural towns, into the southern and western suburbs of Johannesburg. The western suburbs of Johannesburg (Newlands, Triomf, which has now reverted to its old name Sophiatown, Westdene, etc.) are predominantly Afrikaans speaking. In a similar fashion, people from predominantly or traditionally Jewish areas in the Johannesburg area (such as Sandton, Linksfield or Victory Park) may have accents influenced by Yiddish or Hebrew ancestry.
South African English accent, across the spectrum, is non-rhotic.
Examples of South African accents (obtained from http://accent.gmu.edu)
Native English: Male (Cape Town, South Africa)
Native English: Female (Cape Town, South Africa)
Native English: Male (Port Elizabeth, South Africa)
Native English: Male (Nigel, South Africa)
Afrikaans (Primary): Female (Pretoria, South Africa)
Afrikaans (Primary): Male (Pretoria, South Africa)
Afrikaans (Primary): Male (Pretoria, South Africa)
Northern Sotho (Primary): Female (Polokwane, South Africa)
Additional samples of South African accents and dialects can be found at http://web.ku.edu/~idea/africa/southafrica/southafrica.htm
Regardless of regional and ethnic differences (in accents), South African English accent is sometimes confused with Australian (or New Zealand) English by British and American English speakers.
Zimbabwe
In Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, native English speakers (mainly the white and Coloured minority) have a similar speech pattern to that of South Africa. Hence those with high degrees of Germanic inflection would pronounce 'Zimbabwe' as zim-bah-bwi, as opposed to the African pronunciation zeem-bah-bweh. Zimbwabwean accents also vastly vary, with some Black Africans sounding British while others will have a much stronger accent influenced by their mother tongues, usually this distinction is brought about by where speakers grew up and the school attended. For example, most people that grew up in and around Harare have a British sounding accent while those in the rural areas have a more "pidgin-english" sort of accent
Example of a Zimbabwean English accent (obtained from http://accent.gmu.edu)
Shona (Primary): Female (Bulawayo, Zimbabwe)
Namibia
Namibian English tends to be strongly influenced by South African English. Most Namibians that grew up in and around the capital city (Windhoek) have developed an English accent while those in the rural areas have an accent strongly influenced by their mother tongue particularly Bantu languages.
Asia
India and South Asia
A number of distinct dialects of English are spoken in South Asia. There are many languages spoken in South Asia like Nepali, Hindi, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Marathi, Odia, Maithili, Malayalam, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, Tulu, Urdu and many more, creating a variety of accents of English. Accents originating in this part of the world tend to display several distinctive features, including:
syllable-timing, in which a roughly equal time is allocated to each syllable. Akin to the English of Singapore and Malaysia. (Elsewhere, English speech timing is based predominantly on stress);
"sing-song" pitch (somewhat reminiscent of those of Welsh English).
Philippines
Philippine English employs a rhotic accent that originated from the time when it was first introduced by the Americans during the colonization period in the attempt to replace Spanish as the dominant political language. As there are no /f/ or /v/ sounds in most native languages in the Philippines, [p] is used as alternative to /f/ as [b] is to /v/. Thus, the words "fifty" and "five" are often pronounced and “pibe” by many Filipinos. Similarly, /θ/ is more often changed to [t] as /ð/ is to [d]. Hence, "three" becomes /tri/ while "that" becomes /dat/. This feature is consistent with many Malayo-Polynesian languages.
Apart from the frequent inability to pronounce certain fricatives (e.g., [f], [v], [θ], [ð]), in reality, there is no single Philippine English accent. This is because native languages influence spoken English in different ways throughout the archipelago. For instance, those from Visayas usually interchange sounds /e/ and /i/ as well as /o/ and /u/ because the distinction is not very pronounced in native Visayan languages.
People from the northern Philippines may pronounce /r/ with a strong trill instead of a flap as it is one feature of the Ilokano language. Ilokano people also generally pronounce the schwa sound /ə/ better because they use a similar sound in their language.
Hong Kong
The accent of English spoken in Hong Kong follows mainly British, with rather strong influence from Cantonese on the pronunciations of a few consonants and vowels, and sentence grammar and structure.
Malaysia
Malay is the lingua franca of Malaysia, a federation of former British colonies and similar dependencies. English is a foreign language with no official status, but it is commonly learnt as a second or third language.
The Malaysian accent appears to be a melding of British, Chinese, Tamil and Malay influences.
Many Malaysians adopt different accents and usages depending on the situation; for example, an office worker may speak with less colloquialism and with a more British accent on the job than with friends or while out shopping.
syllable-timing, where speech is timed according to syllable, akin to the English of the Indian Subcontinent. (Elsewhere, speech is usually timed to stress.)
A quick, staccato style, with "puncturing" syllables and well-defined, drawn out tones.
Non-rhoticity, like most varieties of English language in England. Hence caught and court are homophonous as (in actuality, or , see "Simplification" below); can't rhymes with aren't, etc.
The "ay" and "ow" sounds in raid and road ( and respectively) are pronounced as monophthongs, i.e. with no "glide": and .
is pronounced as [t] and as [d]; hence, thin is and then is .
Depending on how colloquial the situation is: many discourse particles, or words inserted at the end of sentences that indicate the role of the sentence in discourse and the mood it conveys, like "lah", "leh", "mah", "hor", etc.
Singapore
Singapore is effectively a multi-lingual nation. The Singapore government recognises four official languages: English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese, and Tamil.
Students in primary and secondary schools learning English as the language of instruction also learn a second language called their "Mother Tongue" by the Ministry of Education, where they are taught Mandarin Chinese, Malay or Tamil. A main point to note is while "Mother Tongue" generally refers to the first language (L1) overseas, in Singapore, it is used by the Ministry of Education to denote the traditional language of one's ethnic group, which sometimes can be their second language (L2).
There are two main types of English spoken in Singapore – Standard Singapore English and Singlish. Singlish is more widely spoken than standard English. It has a very distinctive tone and sentence structure which are both strongly influenced by Malay and the many varieties of Chinese spoken in the city.
A 2005 census showed that around 30% of Singaporeans speak English as their main language at home.
There are many foreigners working in Singapore. 36% of the population in Singapore are foreigners and foreigners make up 50% of the service sector. Therefore, it is very common to encounter service staff who are not fluent in English. Most of these staff speak Mandarin Chinese. Those who do not speak Mandarin Chinese tend to speak either broken English or Singlish, which they have learnt from the locals.
Antarctica
Phonetic change in the English spoken at a base in Antarctica has also been registered. This has been referred to as the start of a new accent.
See also
American English
British English
English phonology
Survey of English Dialects
List of dialects of the English language
International Dialects of English Archive
International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects
Koiné language
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
The Speech Accent Archive 1254 audio samples of people with various accents reading the same paragraph.
Sounds Familiar? — Listen to examples of regional accents and dialects from across the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
'Hover & Hear' Accents of English from Around the World, listen and compare side by side instantaneously.
International Dialects of English Archive
English Accents and Dialects Searchable free-access archive of 681 speech samples, England only, wma format with linguistic commentary
Britain's crumbling ruling class is losing the accent of authority An article on the connection of class and accent in the UK, its decline, and the spread of Estuary English
The Telsur Project Homepage of the telephone survey of North American English accents
Pittsburgh Speech & Society A site for non-linguists, by Barbara Johnstone of Carnegie Mellon University
Linguistic Geography of Pennsylvania by Claudio Salvucci
Phillyspeak A newspaper article on Philadelphia speech
J.C. Wells' English Accents course Includes class handouts describing Cockney, Scottish, Australian, and Scouse, among other things.
Evaluating English Accents Worldwide
Do You Speak American? A series of web pages by PBS that attempts to discuss the differences between dialects in the United States
Language by Video Short videos demonstrating differences in English accents around the world.
Regional accents of English
English phonology
Shibboleths
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Joseph Quincy Mitchell (July 27, 1908 – May 24, 1996) was an American writer best known for his works of creative nonfiction he published in The New Yorker. His work primarily consists of character studies, where he used detailed portraits of people and events to highlight the commonplace of the world, especially in and around New York City.
Biography
Early life
Mitchell was born on July 27, 1908 on his maternal grandfather's farm near Fairmont, North Carolina and was the son of Averette Nance and Elizabeth Amanda Parker Mitchell. He had five younger siblings: Jack, Elizabeth, Linda, Harry, and Laura. Mitchell's father, a fourth generation cotton and tobacco farmer, was a Southerner steeped in the values of the Baptist church, and he tried to instill these values into his children. As his eldest son, Averette hoped that Mitchell would someday take over the family business and continue the family's legacy.
Mitchell's adventurous personality as a child contradicted his father's staunch work ethic and traditional Southern values. From a young age, Mitchell was deeply touched by nature. He loved to climb trees, and it was one of the few activities that allowed an outlet for his young imagination to develop. He also tended to escape to the swamps surrounding his father's property as often as he could, as it allowed him to feel connected to the world around him. Mitchell stated, "the water mesmerized me; everything in it interested me, still or moving, dead or alive."
Education
Mitchell left home and attended college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1925. As a journalism major, he was "a solid if not superior student," and he was successful in humanities courses such as history, language, music, and literature and explored classes in nearly every subject. Aside from his studies, he began writing for the campus literary magazine and newspaper as a sports reporter. Because he had no aptitude for mathematics, he was unable to successfully finish his degree. He left college and moved to New York City in 1929.
Family
On February 27, 1932, he married Therese Jacobsen, a reporter and photographer. They remained married until her death in 1980, and had two daughters, Nora and Elizabeth.
Mental health
Joseph Mitchell suffered from depression all of his life. An unsteady relationship with his father and his lack of belonging in his two homes of North Carolina and New York left Mitchell isolated and listless for much of his life. He lived in an era of psychology that focused purely on anxiety, and doctors regarded depression as a severe side effect of existing anxiety. However, symptoms of this condition did not clearly manifest in his life until late in his career. Many of Mitchell's coworkers, as well as his biographer, Thomas Kunkel, tell of the toll the subjects of his works had on him, specifically his greatest subject, Joe Gould. Mitchell once remarked to Washington Post writer David Streitfeld, "You pick someone so close that, in fact, you are writing about yourself. Joe Gould had to leave home because he didn't fit in, the same way I had to leave home because I didn't fit in. Talking to Joe Gould all those years he became me in a way, if you see what I mean." Even with Joe Gould as a way to explore his own reality, Mitchell began to attract characters with similar attributes. In a feature within The New Yorker magazine, Charles Mcgrath notes that "the critic Stanley Edgar Hyman first pointed out that the people Mitchell wrote about more and more resembled himself: loners, depressives, nostalgists, haunters of the waterfront, cherishers of arcane information. The characters in his pieces began to share a similar voice; they all sounded a little like Mitchell."
From 1964 until his death in 1996, Mitchell would go to work at his office on a daily basis, but he never published anything further. Although he struggled to publish, he did write hundreds of pages of manuscripts for several pieces, including his own memoir, which Thomas Kunkel used extensively in writing Mitchell's biography. After he died, his colleague Roger Angell wrote:Each morning, he stepped out of the elevator with a preoccupied air, nodded wordlessly if you were just coming down the hall, and closed himself in his office. He emerged at lunchtime, always wearing his natty brown fedora (in summer, a straw one) and a tan raincoat; an hour and a half later, he reversed the process, again closing the door. Not much typing was heard from within, and people who called on Joe reported that his desktop was empty of everything but paper and pencils. When the end of the day came, he went home. Sometimes, in the evening elevator, I heard him emit a small sigh, but he never complained, never explained.While his battle with mental illness continued in the workplace, he was known by his family as a dependable and caring father and husband at home. Therese Jacobson and their children, Nora and Elizabeth, retained nothing but fond memories of their father, even though they knew he was struggling in his career.
Death
In 1995, Mitchell was diagnosed with lung cancer after he began experiencing back pain. The cancer eventually spread and metastasized in his brain. On May 24, 1996, Mitchell died at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan at the age of 87. He was laid to rest in Floyd Memorial Cemetery in his hometown of Fairmont, North Carolina next to his wife. His daughters inscribed a quote from Shakespeare's seventy-third sonnet, which was one of his favorite lines in literature: "Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang."
Further reading
For more information on Mitchell's biography and daily life, see Thomas Kunkel's Man in Profile: Joseph Mitchell of The New Yorker (2015).
Career
Mitchell came to New York City in 1929, at the age of 21, with the ambition of becoming a political reporter. He worked for such newspapers as The World, the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York World-Telegram, at first covering crime and then doing interviews, profiles, and character sketches. In 1931, he took a break from journalism to work on a freighter that sailed to Leningrad and brought back pulp logs to New York City. He returned to journalism later that year and continued to write for New York newspapers until he was hired by St. Clair McKelway at The New Yorker in 1938. He remained with the magazine until his death in 1996.
His book Up in the Old Hotel collects the best of his writing for The New Yorker, and his earlier book My Ears Are Bent collects the best of his early journalistic writing, which he omitted from Up in the Old Hotel. Mitchell's last book was his empathetic account of the Greenwich Village street character and self-proclaimed historian Joe Gould's extravagantly disguised case of writer's block, published as Joe Gould's Secret (1964). Mitchell served on the board of directors of the Gypsy Lore Society, was one of the founders of the South Street Seaport Museum, was involved with the Friends of Cast-Iron Architecture, and served five years on the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. In August 1937, he placed third in a clam-eating tournament on Block Island by eating 84 cherrystone clams. In 2008, The Library of America selected Mitchell's story "Execution" for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime. The February 11, 2013 edition of The New Yorker includes a previously unpublished portion of Mitchell's unfinished autobiography entitled "Street Life: Becoming Part of the City."
Central themes
Character study
Seen throughout Joseph Mitchell's oeuvre is his distinct focus on the underdog characters, or the laymen of NYC, and the focus on unexpected characters. For example, Mazie is a central focus for a New Yorker article bearing her name.“Mazie” first appears in the print edition of the December 21, 1940 issue of The New Yorker. The piece, later published in Mitchell's collection of essays in Up in the Old Hotel, creates and canonizes Mazie, a woman who worked in the ticket booth of The Venice theatre. Mitchell's meticulous reporting skills result in an account of Mazie complete with factual details, close observation, and direct quotations. Critics believe Mazie resembles Mitchell himself: they share an affinity for remembering small facts and giving attention to the overlooked members of society. Mazie P. Gordon is tough and blunt. Detective Kain of the Oak Street Police Station declares that Mazie “has the roughest tongue and the softest heart in the Third Precinct. In Mitchell's profile, her life is confined to the ticket booth of the movie theatre where she socializes with “bums” that come and go from the surrounding flophouses. Direct conversations detail her interactions with her community.
Mitchell was open to taking on the challenge of profiling the female central character of Mazie. The writing process was challenging until his central character would give him “the revealing remark.” The 1938 World Telegram description of Mazie P. Gordon reveals she was known as “Miss Mazie” to the men she interacted with around the Venice Theatre. She is blonde, kind, and has exaggerated hair and makeup. Two years later, when Mitchell profiled Mazie in The New Yorker, some critics called Mitchell an anthropologist in his description. Mazie becomes more than just a blonde and kind woman, and instead is shown to be complex and strong-willed. Mitchell's close observation of Mazie set a new standard for writers and reporters. Mitchell's curiosity without judgement inspired writers to continue Mazie's legacy.
The character of Mazie is popularized by the novel Saint Mazie by Jami Attenberg. She encountered “Mazie” through Mitchell's collection of his magazine pieces, and used Mitchell's profile to fashion Mazie into a fictional character. Ultimately, Mazie archetypes Mitchell's distinct characteristics that intrigue readers. Much of this intrigue, for all of Mitchell's underdog characters, comes from the access he provides into the lives of the people that the readers of the New Yorker wouldn't normally meet. The Rivermen, for instance, would be irrelevant people to most of NYC citizens until Mitchell brings them into focus for the readers. In yet another way, Rats on the Waterfront (Thirty-Two Rats From Casablanca) tells a compelling story where the central character is not even human. Mitchell's focus on these unlikely characters gives his nonfiction a very distinct character.
Time and passing
The term "Mitchell time" was coined by novelist Thomas Beller to describe the gauzy effect in Mitchell's writings. He goes on to further describe Mitchell's temporal dimension as a "strange and twilight place where a density of historical fact and the feeling of whole eras fading from view are sharply juxtaposed with the senses of cinematic immediacy related in the present tense." Mitchell's distinctive voice can be seen in many, if not all, of his works. The most notable example of "Mitchell time" is seen in the story Mr. Hunter's Grave where the narrative tells of the overlapping of many eras occurring in one small location.
Landscape study
Joseph Mitchell was born in North Carolina, yet throughout the majority of his writing career he centred his writing around New York City and its subjects. He brought a distinct and unique style of reporting to NYC that stemmed from his Southern upbringing. Mitchell was said to have brought the ultimate Southern courtesy of accepting “people on their own terms”. Although he was a Brooklyn police reporter at first, by the time he moved to work in Harlem he began to connect with the “raffish side” of the NYC borough and it was here that his deep affection for NYC and its people started to blossom. Scholars claim that Mitchell's 1959 collection entitled The Bottom of the Harbor is his best and most “elegiac account of New York”. It is here that Mitchell references not only the underdog characters of NYC, but also the underdog places - such as the Fulton Fish Market; a reoccurring place of study in this water based collection. For example, Dragger Captain is “the story of an old salt in the fleet out of Stonington, Connecticut, that supplies the Fulton Fish Market with flounder”. But it is once again Mitchell's character selection in The Bottom of the Harbor that allows him to portray NYC in his signature matte style. The subjects "are mainly old men, they are custodians of memory, their stories a link with the history of a city that has always been mercantile at heart." Additionally, Mitchell liked to visit the Edgewater Cemetery, which was the inspiration for one of his most famous articles - Mr Hunter’s Grave. From North Carolina he “brought an interest in wildflowers” and these flowers “could be found most easily in overgrown cemeteries around New York City.” Mitchell managed to discover these quaint everyday places as he would often set off to work in his New Yorker office, but instead, he would carry on walking, taking in NYC and its landscape. Indeed, much of Mitchell's work was conceived due to his enchanted meandering of NYC where he “walked the city incessantly . . . little escaped his notice”
Selected works
"Up in the Old Hotel"
In Joseph Mitchell's feature "Up in the Old Hotel'," Mitchell explores the Fulton Fish Market of New York, specifically Sloppy Louie's Restaurant. He features the owner of the space, and explores the character in full before adventuring up the old elevator shaft with Louie and exploring the abandoned and sectioned-off old hotel space.
In his opening, Mitchell surveys the personality of the man he has this experience with, setting the mood for the entire piece. Louie is an Italian immigrant that worked for years in restaurants around the city until The Crash of 1929, when the property that is now his restaurant finally came into his price range. It was never the flashiest or nicest building, but it was near the market and was plenty successful in housing a small restaurant. Louie is constantly experimenting with his dishes, making his shop the place to stop and try a new kind of fish, or other seafood. Growing up in a small Italian fishing village himself, he does not shy away from different flavors and possibilities with his fish. He's a humble and gentlemanly man that adds an air of propriety and humility to everything he does; he works the same as any of his employees to keep his restaurant running, doing the same jobs, and always keeps a white cloth folded over his arm for the sake of class, even when he's only running the register. He maintains relationships with his regular customers, like Mitchell, and fosters business relationships with the fishermen that bring their catches to the dock for sale at the Fulton Market.
"Up in the Old Hotel" isn't just the story of Louie, or Sloppy Louie's, but about the closed-off elevator shaft that not even Louie has ever traveled up into. This comes about over breakfast, when Louie tells Mitchell he may need to add extra tables to the second floor of his place to make up for the growing lunch crowds coming in. When Mitchell points out he has four empty floors above them, Louie explains that only the first two floors have stairs to access them, and the rest of the building is closed off. Out of pure curiosity, Mitchell agrees to be the man who will go up to the unused four floors with Louie for the first time, when the opportunity arises. The elevator shaft, the equipment, nor the space above has been used or even really touched since it was shut out, making it a particularly risky endeavor for both of the men, and upon realizing it is safe to use, they travel up to the old hotel that hasn't been seen by anyone in decades.
Up on the first blocked floor, the two men find the remains of what was once a high-end hotel, finding bureaus with playing cards, hangers, mirrors, and the sign to the reading room. The environment itself was depressing to Mitchell, and he decided the leave immediately, so neither of the men bothered to go up to the floor above them. This feature by Mitchell really clings to his notions of the passage of time, and the coming change in New York, and the rest of the world.
"Mr. Hunter's Grave"
"Mr. Hunter's Grave" was published by The New Yorker on September 22, 1956. To this day, the piece remains one of Mitchell's biggest journalistic successes—with an array of positive reviews. "Mr. Hunter's Grave" was republished in one of Mitchell's collections, Up In The Old Hotel, which was released in 1992. The article is based on an encounter Joseph Mitchell had with an African-American man named George Hunter, who lived in Sandy Ground, a black community in Staten Island, one that is credited with being the oldest, established, free black community in the United States.
This article in particular begins with what one could consider a “typical Mitchell day” and allows for the reader to get closer to Mitchell in a sense. One day, Mitchell wakes up, admittedly feeling stressed form his surroundings, packs a couple sandwiches, and decides to go down to Staten Island to explore the cemeteries. Mitchell walks the reader through a number of cemeteries he enjoys walking through on days like that day, which include places such as “Woodrow Methodist Church on Woodrow Road in the Woodrow community, or to the cemetery of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on the Arthur Kill Road in the Rossville community, or to one on the Arthur Kill Road on the outskirts of Rossville” before leading the reader to The South Shore, a more rural part of Staten Island, where trees tend to dominate, and a place where some of the oldest graveyards can be found, (Mitchell). Mitchell continues his exploration of several graveyards, stopping at gravestones, studying them, reading the names off of them, and moving vines and dirt off of certain ones he ponders upon. Mitchell begins to grow weary, preparing to leave the graveyard off of Rossville until he notices a wildflower that catches his attention, drawn to the grave of a Rachel Dissoway, which is when Mitchell is noticed by the rector of the graveyard, Mr. Brock.
The two men discuss Mitchell's interest in wild flowers, particularly Peppergrass, which leads to Mr. Brock telling Mitchell about a cemetery in a black community off of Bloomingdale Road. Mr. Brock gives Mitchell the contact of a Mr. G. Hunter, who is the chairman of trustees of the Methodist Church in the community, Sandy Ground, where Mitchell would like to go look for Peppergrass. Mitchell, using the information given to him by Mr. Brock, contacts Mr. Hunter, and sets up a time to meet the man at his house that coming Saturday morning, for him to explore Sandy Ground.
On Saturday morning, Mitchell arrives at Mr. Hunter's home, where he is greeted by Mr. Hunter, who at the time of his arrival is icing a cake. In the time while Mitchell is at Mr. Hunter's home, Mitchell learns a great deal about the history of Sandy Ground. While in the kitchen, the two men discuss multiple concepts—such as the wildflower pokeweed that the older women of Sandy Ground, including Mr. Hunter's mother, believed that they root had healing properties, even though others just generally regard them as poisonous. Following this, there's commentary about what kind of wood Mr. Hunter's house is built of, and talk about how much he despises flies while the two men are sitting on the porch, (as well as a discussion about the history of Sandy Ground, which started due to the wanting of oysters). Following the incident with the flies, Mr. Hunter and Mitchell begin their trip to the graveyard.
On the way to the graveyard, Mitchell discusses more discussion regarding Mr. Hunter's family and himself—such as the fact that Mr. Hunter wasn't born in the South, but his mother was; more so, his mother was a slave from Virginia, and her mother before her. After Mr. Hunter's mother's slavery days, she moved to Brooklyn, where she met and married his father, although, after his father served a sentence, the family moved to Sandy Ground, hoping to get work by harvesting oysters. After his father's death, Mr. Hunter's mother married a man from Sandy Ground, who Mr. Hunter did not much care for, but goes into the history of his step family nonetheless. Mr. Hunter then goes into discuss how he too became a drunk, and the several jobs he had such as a bricklayer and a business owner, before marrying his first wife. Mr. Hunter reveals that he was married twice, and lost both his wives, he also reveals that he had a son who died. After this revelation, the two men enter the cemetery. The men discuss different roots, some of which Mitchell is familiar with, and one of which he is not, until they come across a grave that Mr. Hunter says is his Uncle's. Mr. Hunter, while Mitchell explores a little more, works on getting the vines off the gravestone, so the two men can better observe it. Following this, the two men stop at a number of different graves, with Mr. Hunter narrating short life stories of each individual they tend to stop at. The routine of stopping, narrating, and continuing comes to a cease upon the two men reaching Mr. Hunter's plot, where he will actually not be buried due to a mishap—of which Mr. Hunter explains clearly, and emotionally, admitting it outraged him. Taking two steps further, Mr. Hunter shows Mitchell were he will be buried in all actuality, stating, “'Ah, well, (…), it won’t make any difference'” ending the article, (Mitchell).
The article, like many others did acquire a level of scrutiny following the publication of a Mitchell biography written by Thomas Kunkel in 2015. Kunkel's biography brought to light several fascinating facts about Joseph Mitchell's life, however, some of the information provided from it opened up a wormhole, specifically the revelation that certain pieces of Mitchell's articles were fabricated and the period of time of which the events took place shortened. Many critics it appears were distraught, such as Michael Rosenwald, a writer for the Columbia Journalism Review. Following the publication of the book, Rosenwald wrote an article entitled, “‘I Wish This Guy Hadn’t Written This Book’”. In this article, Rosenwald explores his own relationship with Mitchell -- stating how the man influenced both himself and other generations of writers and how his favorite article by him is "Mr. Hunter's Grave", then goes into his disappointment about what was put in the Kunkel biography, stating, “For me, learning these things was like a kid discovering his favorite baseball player whacked long home runs while juicing on steroids” showcasing the betrayal he felt. Rosenwald's article also entails the opinion of another well respected journalist, Gay Talese, who Rosenwald is friends with. Upon reading the novel, and hearing about it himself, Rosenwald records that Talese said something along the lines of, “'To hear that one of the guys I grew up admiring did things I don’t think I’d want to be accused of doing, it’s troubling and sad'”.
"Dragger Captain"
In January 1947 "Dragger Captain" appeared in The New Yorker in two parts. In this profile Mitchell talks to and follows 47-year-old Ellery Thompson who is captain of a dragger boat, named Eleanor. The Eleanor works out of Stonington port in Connecticut. Mitchell chooses Ellery Thompson as he is “the most skillful and the most respected of the captain in the Stonington fleet”. Mitchell and Captain Thompson soon find that they have compatible personalities, thus, allowing Mitchell to accompany Ellery during his drags. Throughout the article we gradually learn more about Ellery as a person and not just a dragger captain. Ellery's brother, Morris, died at sea trying to combat poor sailing conditions to try and make a living. Ellery has to then drag for his own brother's body, giving us an insight as to the reason why Ellery looks upon life “with a droll world-weariness”. But Ellery is also a kind and thoughtful man. For example, unlike other draggers, he keeps the best lobster he catches for himself and his crew. Additionally, when the oceanographers from Yale University sail with him on the Eleanor one day a month he flies an “old Yale pennant”. The article closes with Frank, one of Ellery's two crew mates, telling an interesting folk tale. The story is about Old Chrissy, “an old rascal of a woman that was the head of a gang of Block Island wreckers”. The gig was that Chrissy and her crew would lure ships in “with false lights, & they killed the sailors & the passengers, so there wouldn't be any tales told”. On one occasion she unknowingly lures in her own son's ship. But, she chooses to “clout him on the head. ‘A son’s a son,’ she said, ‘but a wreck’s a wreck”.
“Dragger Captain” was met with much critical acclaim. So much so, that the rights were acquired by Warner Brothers and it was rumoured that they were going to “develop it for Gary Cooper”. Thompson was promised 10% of any proceeds by Mitchell. Ultimately though, nothing came of the rumours with Michell calling it “studio commissary gossip” and stating that “the only truth in it is that a writer has been assigned to try and work out a script on dragger finishing, using the Profile as background”.
Joe Gould's Secret
In Joe Gould's Secret (1965), Mitchell expanded upon two earlier New Yorker profiles, “Professor Sea Gull” (1942) and “Joe Gould’s Secret” (1964), concerning Joe Gould, an eccentric bohemian living in New York City. Following Gould's death, Mitchell embarks on a search for the massive book Gould had long claimed to be writing, An Oral History of Our Time. Mitchell soon learns that the purportedly nine-million-word work of oral history does not exist. However, he finds that Gould is a popular and central figure within a number of New York circles. Extending Mitchell's abiding concerns with the anti-hero and the New York landscape,Joe Gould’s Secret also captures the essence of Gould's non-existent oral history by preserving the life and voice of Joe Gould.
Gould's writing is digressive and self-referential; however, Mitchell's writing in Joe Gould’s Secret diverges from his previous works. Mitchell often speaks in first person while offering personal accounts and memories revolving around the plot. Furthermore, Gould's nonexistent “Oral History” is an attempt to capture the voices of the plebeian class, or the anti-heroes. Mitchell's entire work, especially Joe Gould’s Secret, captures the selfsame essence. His work often revolves around character study, in which he captures Joe Gould's profile. Gould struggles with writing and rewriting the first few chapters of his “Oral History” because of writer's block. Ironically, Mitchell, himself, is struggling with a degree of writer's block in which he was unable, later in life, to continue his previous writing output.
Critical reception
Critical reviews of Mitchell's works are, almost overwhelmingly, positive. Many critics have labeled Mitchell "the best reporter in the country" and marked him as the writer with whom "any writer with aspirations in literary journalism...has to reckon with," and the writer that "transform[ed] the craft of reporting into art". William Zinsser states that Mitchell serves as the "primary textbook" for "nonfiction writers of any generation". Critics credit Mitchell's strength as a writer to his "skills as an interviewer, photographic representation of his characters and their speech, deadpan humor, and graceful, unadorned prose style". Critics also note that it is Mitchell's "respect and compassion for his subjects" that allows him to explore uncomfortable themes like "mortality, change, and the past". Throughout Mitchell's career, he has been praised for his "ear for dialogue and eye for detail, genuine interest in the lives of his subjects, rhythmic, simple prose". For many critics, Mitchell serves as the model writer for "generations of nonfiction writers" In the latter part of Mitchell's career, critics began to note that the tone of his writing had become "increasingly nostalgic" but that he retained his "earthly sense of humor and obvious delight in making new discoveries about New York". One notable literary critic, Noel Perrin, notes that "Mitchell described the life and even the very soul of New York as perhaps no one else ever has". There are critics who question Mitchell's legacy as a journalist because of his tendency to "cross a line" between fiction and nonfiction, often "shaping the facts" of his stories to offer "the core 'truth' of the story" rather than "its interior factuality". One critic asks, "knowing [Mitchell] fabricated and embellished, how should we view his legacy?"
In popular culture
In 2000, Joe Gould's Secret, a feature film directed by Stanley Tucci and written by Howard A. Rodman, was released. It focuses on the relationship between Mitchell (played by Tucci) and Joe Gould (Ian Holm) during the 1940s.
Mitchell is portrayed in The Blackwell Series, an indie computer game series revolving around paranormal themes. In the second game of the series, the player encounters Mitchell during the prolonged writer's block of his later years. In the third game of the series, the player encounters ghosts of both Mitchell and Joe Gould.
Mitchell is referenced by the editor of the Baltimore Sun, Gus Haynes, in the last episode of the HBO drama The Wire. Steve Earle's song "Down Here Below", from Washington Square Serenade, mentions Mitchell directly saying, “I saw Joe Mitchell's ghost on a downtown 'A' train. He just rides on forever now that the Fulton Fish Market's shut down."
Bibliography
Collections from prior newspaper works
Collections of work from The New Yorker
)
All works from The New Yorker
1931–1939
Comment With E.B. White Comment (January 16, 1931)
Comment With E.B. White Comment (August 12, 1932)
High Hats' Harold D. Winney & Joseph Mitchell The Talk of the Town (June 9, 1933)
Reporter at Large They Got Married in Elkton A Reporter at Large (November 3, 1933)
Home Girl Profiles (February 23, 1934)
Reporter at Large. Bar and Grill. A Reporter at Large (November 13, 1936)
Mr. Grover A. Whalen and the Midway A Reporter at Large (June 25, 1937)
The Kind Old Blonde Fiction (May 27, 1938)
Reporter at Large A Reporter at Large (August 19, 1938)
Mrs. Bright and Shining Star Chibby Fiction (October 28, 1938)
I Couldn't Dope it Out Fiction (December 2, 1938)
Christmas Story A Reporter at Large (December 16, 1938)
Obituary of a Gin Mill A Reporter at Large (December 30, 1938)
Downfall of Fascism in Black Ankle County Fiction (January 6, 1939)
The Little Brutes! A Reporter at Large (February 3, 1939)
Dignity. The Talk of the Town (February 10, 1939)
All You Can Hold For Five Bucks. A Reporter at Large (April 7, 1939)
Plans The Talk of the Town (April 14, 1939)
Hotfoot The Talk of the Town (April 21, 1939)
The Catholic Street A Reporter at Large (April 21, 1939)
Houdini's Picnic A Reporter at Large (April 28, 1939)
More Plans The Talk of the Town (April 28, 1939)
Uncle Dockery and the Independent Bull Fiction (May 5, 1939)
Windsor's Friends With Russell Maloney The Talk of the Town (May 19, 1939)
The Hospital Was All Right Fiction (May 19, 1939)
A Mess of Clams A Reporter at Large (July 21, 1939)
Goodbye, Shirley Temple Fiction (September 8, 1939)
Mr. Barbee's Terrapin A Reporter at Large (October 20, 1939)
The Markee Profiles (October 27, 1939)
Sunday Night Was a Dangerous Night Fiction (November 24, 1939)
1940–1949
I Blame it All on Mama Fiction (January 5, 1940)
Santa Claus Smith of Riga, Latvia, Europe A Reporter at Large (March 22, 1940)
The Old House at Home Profiles (April 14, 1940)
Lady Olga Profiles (July 26, 1940)
Evening with a Gifted Child A Reporter at Large (August 23, 1940)
Second-Hand Hot Spots Profiles (September 13, 1940)
Mazie Profiles (December 14, 1940)
New Resident. With Eugene Kinkead & Harold Ross The Talk of the Town (January 24, 1941)
Mr. Colborne's Profanity-Exterminators Profiles (April 25, 1941)
But There is No Sound A Reporter at Large (September 12, 1941)
The Tooth Profiles (October 24, 1941)
King of the Gypsies Profiles (August 7, 1942)
Professor Sea Gull Profiles (December 4, 1942)
Comment Comment (April 23, 1943)
A Spism and a Spasm Profiles (July 16, 1943)
The Mayor of the Fish Market Profiles (December 24, 1943)
Rebate. With F. Whitz The Talk of the Town (February 25, 1944)
Thirty-Two Rats from Casablanca A Reporter at Large (April 21, 1944)
Coffins! Undertakers! Hearses! Funeral Parlors! A Reporter at Large (November 17, 1944)
Solution. (March 2, 1945)
Mr. Flood's Party A Reporter at Large (July 27, 1945)
Dragger Captain. Profiles (December 27, 1946)
Dragger Captain: Professors Abroad Profiles (January 3, 1947)
Incidental Intelligence With Brendan Gill The Talk of the Town (August 15, 1947)
The Mohawks in High Steel A Reporter at Large (September 9, 1949)
1950–1964
The Bottom of the Harbor Profiles (December 29, 1950)
The Cave Profiles (June 20, 1952)
Comment With Brendan Gill Comment (May 6, 1955)
The Beautiful Flower Profiles (May 27, 1955)
Three Men With Brendan Gill The Talk of the Town (April 20, 1956)
Mr. Hunter's Grave Profiles (September 14, 1956)
Observer With John McCarten The Talk of the Town (November 14, 1958)
The Rivermen Profiles (March 27, 1959)
Joe Gould's Secret - I Profiles (September 11, 1964)
Joe Gould's Secret Profiles (September 18, 1964)
2000–2015
Takes Takes (May 28, 2000)
Street Life Personal History (February 3, 2013)
Days in the Branch Personal History (November 24, 2014)
A Place of Pasts Personal History (February 9, 2015)
Notes
External links
1908 births
1996 deaths
20th-century American journalists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
American male journalists
Burials in North Carolina
Deaths from brain tumor
Deaths from cancer in New York (state)
Deaths from lung cancer
New York Herald Tribune people
People from Fairmont, North Carolina
The New Yorker people
The New Yorker staff writers
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The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, themselves a branch of the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century more than 800 million people speak Indo-Aryan languages, primarily in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Morever, apart from the Indo subcontinent, large immigrant and expatriate Indo-Aryan-speaking communities live in Northwestern Europe, Western Asia, North America, Southeast Africa and Australia, along with several million speakers of Romani languages primarily in Southeastern Europe. There are well over 200 known Indo-Aryan languages.
Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as early Vedic, through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits). The largest such languages in terms of L1 speakers are Hindi-Urdu (about 329 million), Bengali (242 million), Punjabi (about 120 million), Marathi, (112 million), Gujarati (60 million), Rajasthani (58 million), Bhojpuri (51 million), Odia (35 million), Maithili (about 34 million), Sindhi (25 million), Nepali (16 million), Assamese (15 million), Chhattisgarhi (18 million), Sinhala (17 million) and Romani (ca. 3.5 million). A 2005 estimate placed the total number of native speakers of Indo-Aryan languages at nearly 900 million.
Classification
Theories
The Indo-Aryan family as a whole is thought to represent a dialect continuum, where languages are often transitional towards neighboring varieties. Because of this, the division into languages vs. dialects is in many cases somewhat arbitrary. The classification of the Indo-Aryan languages is controversial, with many transitional areas that are assigned to different branches depending on classification. There are concerns that a tree model is insufficient for explaining the development of New Indo-Aryan, with some scholars suggesting the wave model.
Subgroups
The following table of proposals is expanded from . Note that the table only lists some modern Indo-Aryan languages.
Anton I. Kogan, in 2016, conducted a lexicostatistical study of the New Indo-Aryan languages based on a 100-word Swadesh list, using techniques developed by the glottochronologist and comparative linguist Sergei Starostin. That grouping system is notable for Kogan's exclusion of Dardic from Indo-Aryan on the basis of his previous studies showing low lexical similarity to Indo-Aryan (43.5%) and negligible difference with similarity to Iranian (39.3%). He also calculated Sinhala–Dhivehi to be the most divergent Indo-Aryan branch. Nevertheless, the modern consensus of Indo-Aryan linguists tends towards the inclusion of Dardic based on morphological and grammatical features.
Inner–Outer hypothesis
The Inner–Outer hypothesis argues for a core and periphery of Indo-Aryan languages, with Outer Indo-Aryan (generally including Eastern and Southern Indo-Aryan, and sometimes Northwestern Indo-Aryan, Dardic and Pahari) representing an older stratum of Old Indo-Aryan that has been mixed to varying degrees with the newer stratum that is Inner Indo-Aryan. It is a contentious proposal with a long history, with varying degrees of claimed phonological and morphological evidence. Since its proposal by Rudolf Hoernlé in 1880 and refinement by George Grierson it has undergone numerous revisions and a great deal of debate, with the most recent iteration by Franklin Southworth and Claus Peter Zoller based on robust linguistic evidence (particularly an Outer past tense in -l-). Some of the theory's skeptics include Suniti Kumar Chatterji and Colin P. Masica.
Groups
The below classification follows , and .
Dardic
The Dardic languages (also Dardu or Pisaca) are a group of Indo-Aryan languages largely spoken in the northwestern extremities of the Indian subcontinent. Dardic was first formulated by George Abraham Grierson in his Linguistic Survey of India but he did not consider it to be a subfamily of Indo-Aryan. The Dardic group as a genetic grouping (rather than areal) has been scrutinised and questioned to a degree by recent scholarship: Southworth, for example, says "the viability of Dardic as a genuine subgroup of Indo-Aryan is doubtful" and "the similarities among [Dardic languages] may result from subsequent convergence".
The Dardic languages are thought to be transitional with Punjabi and Pahari (e.g. Zoller describes Kashmiri as "an interlink between Dardic and West Pahāṛī"), as well as non-Indo-Aryan Nuristani; and are renowned for their relatively conservative features in the context of Proto-Indo-Aryan.
Kashmiri: Kashmiri, Kishtwari;
Shina: Brokskad, Kundal Shahi, Shina, Ushojo, Kalkoti, Palula, Savi;
Chitrali: Kalasha, Khowar;
Kohistani: Bateri, Chilisso, Gowro, Indus Kohistani, Kalami, Tirahi, Torwali, Wotapuri-Katarqalai;
Pashayi
Kunar: Dameli, Gawar-Bati, Nangalami, Shumashti.
Northern Zone
The Northern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as the Pahari ('hill') languages, are spoken throughout the Himalayan regions of the subcontinent.
Eastern Pahari: Nepali, Jumli, Doteli;
Central Pahari: Garhwali, Kumaoni;
Western Pahari (Himachali): Dogri, Kangri, Bhadarwahi, Churahi, Bhateali, Bilaspuri, Chambeali, Gaddi, Pangwali, Mandeali, Mahasu Pahari, Jaunsari, Kullu, Pahari Kinnauri, Hinduri, Sirmauri.
Northwestern Zone
Northwestern Indo-Aryan languages are spoken throughout the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent. Punjabi is spoken predominantly in the Punjab region and is the official language of the northern Indian state of Punjab; in addition to being the most widely-spoken language in Pakistan. To the south, Sindhi and its variants are spoken; primarily in Sindh. Northwestern languages are ultimately thought to be descended from Shauraseni Prakrit.
Punjabi
Eastern Punjabi: Punjabi, Doabi, Majhi, Malwai, Puadhi, Sansi;
Western Punjabi (Lahnda): Saraiki, Hindko, Pahari-Pothwari, Inku†, Sarazi;
Sindhi: Sindhi, Jadgali, Kutchi, Luwati, Memoni, Khetrani, Kholosi.
Western Zone
Western Indo-Aryan languages, are spoken in the central and western areas within India, such as Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, in addition to contiguous regions in Pakistan. Gujarati is the official language of Gujarat, and is spoken by over 50 million people. In Europe, various Romani languages are spoken by the Romani people, an itinerant community who historically migrated from India. The Western Indo-Aryan languages are thought to have diverged from their northwestern counterparts, although they have a common antecedent in Shauraseni Prakrit.
Rajasthani: Standard Rajasthani, Bagri, Marwari, Mewati, Dhundari, Harauti, Mewari, Shekhawati, Dhatki, Malvi, Nimadi, Gujari, Goaria, Loarki, Bhoyari, Kanjari, Od;
Gujarati: Gujarati, Jandavra, Saurashtra, Aer, Vaghri, Parkari Koli, Kachi Koli, Wadiyara Koli;
Bhil: Kalto, Vasavi, Wagdi, Gamit, Vaagri Booli;
Northern Bhil: Bauria, Bhilori, Magari;
Central Bhil: Bhili proper, Bhilali, Chodri, Dhodia, Dhanki, Dubli;
Bareli: Palya Bareli, Pauri Bareli, Rathwi Bareli, Pardhi;
Khandeshi
Lambadi
Domaaki
Domari
Romani: Carpathian Romani, Balkan Romani, Vlax Romani;
Northern Romani: Sinte Romani, Finnish Kalo, Baltic Romani.
Central Zone (Madhya or Hindi)
Within India, Hindi languages are spoken primarily in the Hindi belt regions and Gangetic plains, including Delhi and the surrounding areas; where they are often transitional with neighbouring lects. Many of these languages, including Braj and Awadhi, have rich literary and poetic traditions. Urdu, a Persianized derivative of Khariboli, is the official language of Pakistan and also has strong historical connections to India, where it also has been designated with official status. Hindi, a standardized and Sanskritized register of Khariboli, is the official language of the Government of India. Together with Urdu, it is the third most-spoken language in the world.
Western Hindi: Hindustani (including Standard Hindi and Standard Urdu), Braj, Haryanvi, Bundeli, Kannauji, Parya;
Eastern Hindi: Bagheli, Chhattisgarhi, Surgujia;
Awadhi: Fiji Hindi.
Eastern Zone
The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Magadhan languages, are spoken throughout the eastern subcontinent, including Odisha and Bihar, alongside other regions surrounding the northwestern Himalayan corridor. Bengali is the seventh most-spoken language in the world, and has a strong literary tradition; the national anthems of India and Bangladesh are written in Bengali. Assamese and Odia are the official languages of Assam and Odisha, respectively. The Eastern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Magadhan Apabhraṃśa and ultimately from Magadhi Prakrit.
Bihari:
Bhojpuri, Caribbean Hindustani;
Magahi, Khortha;
Maithili, Angika, Bajjika;
Sadanic: Sadri (Nagpuri), Kurmali (Panchpargania);
Tharu, Kochila Tharu, Buksa, Majhi, Musasa;
Kumhali, Kuswaric: Danwar, Bote-Darai;
Halbic: Halbi, Kamar, Bhunjia, Nahari;
Odia: Baleswari, Kataki, Ganjami, Sundargadi, Sambalpuri, Desia;
Bodo Parja, Bhatri, Reli, Kupia;
Bengali–Assamese: Bishnupriya Manipuri, Hajong, Chittagonian, Chakma, Noakhailla, Tanchangya, Rohingya, Sylheti,;
Bengali-Gauda: Bengali, Bangali, Rarhi, Varendri, Sundarbani, Manbhumi, Dhakaiya Kutti, Dobhashi;
Kamarupic: Assamese, Kamrupi, Goalpariya, Rangpuri, Surjapuri, Rajbanshi;
Southern Zone
Marathi-Konkani languages are ultimately descended from Maharashtri Prakrit, whereas Insular Indo-Aryan languages are descended from Elu Prakrit and possess several characteristics that markedly distinguish them from most of their mainland Indo-Aryan counterparts. Marathi people are also known as 'Unidentifiables', due to their complex geographical position between North & South India.
Marathi-Konkani
Marathic: Marathi, Varhadi, Andh, Berar-Deccan Marathi, Phudagi, Katkari, Varli, Kadodi;
Konkanic: Konkani, Canarese Konkani, Maharashtrian Konkani.
Insular Indic
Insular Indic languages (of Sri Lanka and Maldives) started developing independently and diverging from the continental Indo-Aryan languages from around 5th century BCE.
Insular Indo-Aryan
Sinhala
Maldivian: Dhivehi, Mahl
Unclassified
The following languages are related to each other, but are otherwise unclassified within Indo-Aryan:
Chinali–Lahul Lohar: Chinali, Lahul Lohar.
History
Proto-Indo-Aryan
Proto-Indo-Aryan (or sometimes Proto-Indic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Aryan languages. It is intended to reconstruct the language of the pre-Vedic Indo-Aryans. Proto-Indo-Aryan is meant to be the predecessor of Old Indo-Aryan (1500–300 BCE) which is directly attested as Vedic and Mitanni-Aryan. Despite the great archaicity of Vedic, however, the other Indo-Aryan languages preserve a small number of archaic features lost in Vedic.
Mitanni-Aryan hypothesis
Some theonyms, proper names and other terminology of the Mitanni exhibit an Indo-Aryan superstrate, suggest that an Indo-Aryan elite imposed itself over the Hurrians in the course of the Indo-Aryan expansion. In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni, the deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the Ashvins (Nasatya) are invoked. Kikkuli's horse training text includes technical terms such as aika (cf. Sanskrit eka, "one"), tera (tri, "three"), panza (pancha, "five"), satta (sapta, seven), na (nava, "nine"), vartana (vartana, "turn", round in the horse race). The numeral aika "one" is of particular importance because it places the superstrate in the vicinity of Indo-Aryan proper as opposed to Indo-Iranian in general or early Iranian (which has aiva).
Another text has babru (babhru, "brown"), parita (palita, "grey"), and (pingala, "red"). Their chief festival was the celebration of the solstice (vishuva) which was common in most cultures in the ancient world. The Mitanni warriors were called marya, the term for "warrior" in Sanskrit as well; note mišta-nnu (= miẓḍha, ≈ Sanskrit mīḍha) "payment (for catching a fugitive)" (M. Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen, Heidelberg, 1986–2000; Vol. II:358).
Sanskritic interpretations of Mitanni royal names render Artashumara (artaššumara) as Ṛtasmara "who thinks of Ṛta" (Mayrhofer II 780), Biridashva (biridašṷa, biriiašṷa) as Prītāśva "whose horse is dear" (Mayrhofer II 182), Priyamazda (priiamazda) as Priyamedha "whose wisdom is dear" (Mayrhofer II 189, II378), Citrarata as Citraratha "whose chariot is shining" (Mayrhofer I 553), Indaruda/Endaruta as Indrota "helped by Indra" (Mayrhofer I 134), Shativaza (šattiṷaza) as Sātivāja "winning the race price" (Mayrhofer II 540, 696), Šubandhu as Subandhu "having good relatives" (a name in Palestine, Mayrhofer II 209, 735), Tushratta (tṷišeratta, tušratta, etc.) as *tṷaiašaratha, Vedic Tvastar "whose chariot is vehement" (Mayrhofer, Etym. Wb., I 686, I 736).
Indian subcontinent
Dates indicate only a rough time frame.
Proto-Indo-Aryan (before 1500 BCE, reconstructed)
Old Indo-Aryan (ca. 1500–300 BCE)
early Old Indo-Aryan: includes Vedic Sanskrit (ca. 1500 to 500 BCE)
late Old Indo-Aryan: Epic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit (ca. 200 CE to 1300 CE)
Mitanni Indo-Aryan (ca. 1400 BCE) (middle Indo-Aryan features)
Middle Indo-Aryan or Prakrits, (ca. 300 BCE to 1500 CE)
early Buddhist texts (ca. 6th or 5th century BCE)
early Middle Indo-Aryan: e.g. Ashokan Prakrits, Pali, Gandhari, (ca. 300 BCE to 200 BCE)
middle Middle Indo-Aryan: e.g. Dramatic Prakrits, Elu (ca. 200 BCE to 700 CE)
late Middle Indo-Aryan: e.g. Abahattha (ca. 700 CE to 1500 CE)
Early Modern Indo-Aryan (Late Medieval India): e.g. early Dakhini and emergence of the Dehlavi dialect
Old Indo-Aryan
The earliest evidence of the group is from Vedic Sanskrit, that is used in the ancient preserved texts of the Indian subcontinent, the foundational canon of the Hindu synthesis known as the Vedas. The Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni is of similar age to the language of the Rigveda, but the only evidence of it is a few proper names and specialized loanwords.
While Old Indo-Aryan is the earliest stage of the Indo-Aryan branch, from which all known languages of the later stages Middle and New Indo-Aryan are derived, some documented Middle Indo-Aryan variants cannot fully be derived from the documented form of Old Indo-Aryan (i.e. Sanskrit), but betray features that must go back to other undocumented variants/dialects of Old Indo-Aryan.
From Vedic Sanskrit, "Sanskrit" (literally "put together", "perfected" or "elaborated") developed as the prestige language of culture, science and religion, as well as the court, theatre, etc. Sanskrit of the later Vedic texts is comparable to Classical Sanskrit, but is largely mutually unintelligible with Vedic Sanskrit.
Middle Indo-Aryan (Prakrits)
Mitanni inscriptions show some Middle Indo-Aryan characteristics along with Old Indo-Aryan, for example sapta in Old Indo-Aryan becomes satta (pt develops into Middle Indo-Aryan tt). According to S.S. Misra, this language can be similar to Buddhist-hybrid Sanskrit which might not be a mixed language but an early middle Indo-Aryan occurring much before Prakrit.
Outside the learned sphere of Sanskrit, vernacular dialects (Prakrits) continued to evolve. The oldest attested Prakrits are the Buddhist and Jain canonical languages Pali and Ardhamagadhi Prakrit, respectively. Inscriptions in Ashokan Prakrit were also part of this early Middle Indo-Aryan stage.
By medieval times, the Prakrits had diversified into various Middle Indo-Aryan languages. Apabhraṃśa is the conventional cover term for transitional dialects connecting late Middle Indo-Aryan with early Modern Indo-Aryan, spanning roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. Some of these dialects showed considerable literary production; the Śravakacāra of Devasena (dated to the 930s) is now considered to be the first Hindi book.
The next major milestone occurred with the Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent in the 13th–16th centuries. Under the flourishing Turco-Mongol Mughal Empire, Persian became very influential as the language of prestige of the Islamic courts due to adoptation of the foreign language by the Mughal emperors.
The two largest languages that formed from Apabhraṃśa were Bengali and Hindustani; others include Assamese, Sindhi, Gujarati, Odia, Marathi, and Punjabi.
New Indo-Aryan
Medieval Hindustani
In the Central Zone Hindi-speaking areas, for a long time the prestige dialect was Braj Bhasha, but this was replaced in the 19th century by Dehlavi-based Hindustani. Hindustani was strongly influenced by Persian, with these and later Sanskrit influence leading to the emergence of Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu as registers of the Hindustani language. This state of affairs continued until the division of the British Indian Empire in 1947, when Hindi became the official language in India and Urdu became official in Pakistan. Despite the different script the fundamental grammar remains identical, the difference is more sociolinguistic than purely linguistic. Today it is widely understood/spoken as a second or third language throughout South Asia and one of the most widely known languages in the world in terms of number of speakers.
Outside the Indian subcontinent
Domari
Domari is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by older Dom people scattered across the Middle East. The language is reported to be spoken as far north as Azerbaijan and as far south as central Sudan. Based on the systematicity of sound changes, linguists have concluded that the ethnonyms Domari and Romani derive from the Indo-Aryan word ḍom.
Lomavren
Lomavren is a nearly extinct mixed language, spoken by the Lom people, that arose from language contact between a language related to Romani and Domari and the Armenian language.
Romani
The Romani language is usually included in the Western Indo-Aryan languages. Romani varieties, which are mainly spoken throughout Europe, are noted for their relatively conservative nature; maintaining the Middle Indo-Aryan present-tense person concord markers, alongside consonantal endings for nominal case. Indeed, these features are no longer evident in most other modern Central Indo-Aryan languages. Moreover, Romani shares an innovative pattern of past-tense person, which corresponds to Dardic languages, such as Kashmiri and Shina. This is believed to be further indication that proto-Romani speakers were originally situated in central regions of the subcontinent, before migrating to northwestern regions. However, there are no known historical sources regarding the development of the Romani language specifically within India.
Research conducted by nineteenth-century scholars Pott (1845) and Miklosich (1882–1888) demonstrated that the Romani language is most aptly designated as a New Indo-Aryan language (NIA), as opposed to Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA); establishing that proto-Romani speakers could not have left India significantly earlier than AD 1000.
The principal argument favouring a migration during or after the transition period to NIA is the loss of the old system of nominal case, coupled with its reduction to a two-way nominative-oblique case system,. A secondary argument concerns the system of gender differentiation, due to the fact that Romani has only two genders (masculine and feminine). Middle Indo-Aryan languages (named MIA) generally employed three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), and some modern Indo-Aryan languages retain this aspect today.
It is suggested that loss of the neuter gender did not occur until the transition to NIA. During this process, most of the neuter nouns became masculine, while several became feminine. For example, the neuter aggi "fire" in Prakrit morphed into the feminine āg in Hindi, and jag in Romani. The parallels in grammatical gender evolution between Romani and other NIA languages have additionally been cited as indications that the forerunner of Romani remained on the Indian subcontinent until a later period, possibly as late as the tenth century.
Sindhic migrations
Kholosi, Jadgali, and Luwati represent offshoots of the Sindhic subfamily of Indo-Aryan that have established themselves in the Persian gulf region, perhaps through sea-based migrations. These are of a later origin than the Rom and Dom migrations which represent a different part of Indo-Aryan as well.
Indentured labourer migrations
The use by the British East India Company of indentured labourers led to the transplanting of Indo-Aryan languages around the world, leading to locally influenced lects that diverged from the source language, such as Fiji Hindi and Caribbean Hindustani.
Phonology
Consonants
Stop positions
The normative system of New Indo-Aryan stops consists of five places of articulation: labial, dental, "retroflex", palatal, and velar, which is the same as that of Sanskrit. The "retroflex" position may involve retroflexion, or curling the tongue to make the contact with the underside of the tip, or merely retraction. The point of contact may be alveolar or postalveolar, and the distinctive quality may arise more from the shaping than from the position of the tongue. Palatals stops have affricated release and are traditionally included as involving a distinctive tongue position (blade in contact with hard palate). Widely transcribed as , claims to be a more accurate rendering.
Moving away from the normative system, some languages and dialects have alveolar affricates instead of palatal, though some among them retain in certain positions: before front vowels (esp. ), before , or when geminated. Alveolar as an additional point of articulation occurs in Marathi and Konkani where dialect mixture and others factors upset the aforementioned complementation to produce minimal environments, in some West Pahari dialects through internal developments (, > ), and in Kashmiri. The addition of a retroflex affricate to this in some Dardic languages maxes out the number of stop positions at seven (barring borrowed ), while a reduction to the inventory involves *ts > , which has happened in Assamese, Chittagonian, Sinhala (though there have been other sources of a secondary ), and Southern Mewari.
Further reductions in the number of stop articulations are in Assamese and Romani, which have lost the characteristic dental/retroflex contrast, and in Chittagonian, which may lose its labial and velar articulations through spirantisation in many positions (> ).
Nasals
Sanskrit was noted as having five nasal-stop articulations corresponding to its oral stops, and among modern languages and dialects Dogri, Kacchi, Kalasha, Rudhari, Shina, Saurashtri, and Sindhi have been analysed as having this full complement of phonemic nasals , with the last two generally as the result of the loss of the stop from a homorganic nasal + stop cluster ( > and > ), though there are other sources as well.
In languages that lack phonemic nasals at some places of articulation, they can still occur allophonically from place assimilation in a nasal + stop culture, e.g. Hindi > .
Aspiration and breathy-voice
Most Indo-Aryan languages have contrastive aspiration (), and some retain historical breathy voice on voiced consonants (). Sometimes both phenomena are analysed as a single aspiration contrast. The places and manners of articulation which allow contrastive aspiration vary by language; e.g. Sindhi permits phonemic , but the phonemic status of this sound in Hindi is uncertain, and many "Dardic" languages lack aspirated retroflex sibilants despite having unaspirated equivalents.
In languages that have lost breathy-voice, the contrast has often been replaced with tone.
Regional developments
Some of these are mentioned in .
Implosives: Languages in the Sindhic subfamily, as well as Saraiki, western Marwari dialects, and some dialects of Gujarati have developed implosive consonants from historical intervocalic geminates and word-initial stops. Sindhi has a full implosive series except for the dental implosive: . It has been claimed that Wadiyari Koli has the dental implosive too. Other languages have less complete implosive series, e.g. Kacchi has just .
Prenasalized stops: Sinhala and Maldivian (Dhivehi) have a series of prenasalized stops covering all places except for palatal: .
Palatalization: Kashmiri (natively) and some Romani dialects (from contact with Slavic languages) have contrastive palatalisation.
Lateral affricates: Bhadarwahi has an unusual series of lateral retroflex affricates ( derived from historical clusters.
Vowels
Vowel typologies are varied across Indo-Aryan due to diachronic mergers and (in some cases) splits, as well as different accounts by linguists for even the widely-spoken languages. Vowel systems per are listed below.
Charts
The following are consonant systems of major and representative New Indo-Aryan languages, mostly following , though here they are in IPA. Parentheses indicate those consonants found only in loanwords: square brackets indicate those with "very low functional load". The arrangement is roughly geographical.
Sociolinguistics
Register
In many Indo-Aryan languages, the literary register is often more archaic and utilises a different lexicon (Sanskrit or Perso-Arabic) than spoken vernacular. One example is Bengali's high literary form, Sādhū bhāśā as opposed to the more modern Calita bhāśā (Cholito-bhasha). This distinction approaches diglossia.
Language and dialect
In the context of South Asia, the choice between the appellations "language" and "dialect" is a difficult one, and any distinction made using these terms is obscured by their ambiguity. In one general colloquial sense, a language is a "developed" dialect: one that is standardised, has a written tradition and enjoys social prestige. As there are degrees of development, the boundary between a language and a dialect thus defined is not clear-cut, and there is a large middle ground where assignment is contestable.
There is a second meaning of these terms, in which the distinction is drawn on the basis of linguistic similarity. Though seemingly a "proper" linguistics sense of the terms, it is still problematic: methods that have been proposed for quantifying difference (for example, based on mutual intelligibility) have not been seriously applied in practice; and any relationship established in this framework is relative.
See also
Indo-Aryans
Iranic languages
Indo-Aryan migration
Proto-Vedic Continuity
The family of Brahmic scripts
Linguistic history of India
Indo-Aryan loanwords in Tamil
Languages of Bangladesh
Languages of India
Languages of Pakistan
Languages of Nepal
Notes
References
Further reading
John Beames, A comparative grammar of the modern Aryan languages of India: to wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bangali. Londinii: Trübner, 1872–1879. 3 vols.
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Madhav Deshpande (1979). Sociolinguistic attitudes in India: An historical reconstruction. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers. , (pbk).
Chakrabarti, Byomkes (1994). A comparative study of Santali and Bengali. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co.
Erdosy, George. (1995). The Indo-Aryans of ancient South Asia: Language, material culture and ethnicity. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. .
Ernst Kausen, 2006. Die Klassifikation der indogermanischen Sprachen (Microsoft Word, 133 KB)
Kobayashi, Masato.; & George Cardona (2004). Historical phonology of old Indo-Aryan consonants. Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. .
.
Misra, Satya Swarup. (1980). Fresh light on Indo-European classification and chronology. Varanasi: Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan.
Misra, Satya Swarup. (1991–1993). The Old-Indo-Aryan, a historical & comparative grammar (Vols. 1–2). Varanasi: Ashutosh Prakashan Sansthan.
Sen, Sukumar. (1995). Syntactic studies of Indo-Aryan languages. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Foreign Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Vacek, Jaroslav. (1976). The sibilants in Old Indo-Aryan: A contribution to the history of a linguistic area. Prague: Charles University.
External links
The Indo-Aryan languages, 25 October 2009
The Indo-Aryan languages Colin P.Masica
Survey of the syntax of the modern Indo-Aryan languages (Rajesh Bhatt), 7 February 2003.
Indo-European languages
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 is a 2011 fantasy film directed by David Yates and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the second of two cinematic parts based on J. K. Rowling's 2007 novel of the same name and the eighth and final instalment in the Harry Potter film series. It was written by Steve Kloves and produced by David Heyman, David Barron, and Rowling. The story continues to follow Harry Potter's quest to find and destroy Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes in order to stop him once and for all. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, alongside Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Harry's best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Principal photography began on 19 February 2009, and was completed on 12 June 2010, with reshoots taking place in December 2010.
Part 2 was released in 2D, 3-D and IMAX cinemas worldwide from 13 to 15 July 2011, and is the only Harry Potter film to be released in 3-D. The film was a commercial success and one of the best-reviewed films of 2011, earning praise for the acting, Yates's direction, musical score, visual effects, cinematography, action sequences, and satisfying conclusion of the saga. At the box office, Part 2 claimed the worldwide opening weekend record, earning $483.2 million, as well as setting opening day and opening weekend records in various countries. Part 2 grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide and became the third-highest-grossing film at the time, as well as the highest-grossing film of 2011. As of 2021, it is the 14th-highest-grossing film of all time, the highest-grossing film in the Harry Potter series, as well as in the Wizarding World franchise, and the ninth film to gross over $1 billion. It is also the highest-grossing film ever released by Warner Bros. The film won several awards and was nominated for many more, including three nominations at the Academy Awards for Best Art Direction, Best Makeup and Best Visual Effects.
The Blu-ray and DVD sets were released on 11 November 2011 in the United States and on 2 December 2011 in the United Kingdom. The film was also released in the Harry Potter: Complete 8-Film Collection box set on DVD and Blu-ray, which included all eight films and new special features. Part 1 and Part 2 were released as a combo pack on DVD and Blu-ray on 11 November 2011 in Canada.
Plot
After burying Dobby, Harry Potter asks the goblin Griphook to help him, along with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, break into Bellatrix Lestrange's vault at Gringotts bank, suspecting a Horcrux is there. Griphook agrees, in exchange for the Sword of Gryffindor. Wandmaker Ollivander tells Harry that two wands taken from Malfoy Manor belonged to Bellatrix and Draco Malfoy; he senses Draco's wand has changed its allegiance to Harry, who captured it from Draco. A horcrux, Helga Hufflepuff's cup, is found in Bellatrix's vault, but Griphook snatches the sword and abandons them. Trapped by security, they release the dragon guardian and flee Gringotts on its back. Harry has a vision of Lord Voldemort at Gringotts, furious at the theft. Harry also realises a Horcrux connected to Rowena Ravenclaw is hidden at Hogwarts. The trio apparate into Hogsmeade and are helped by Aberforth Dumbledore, who reveals a secret passageway into Hogwarts, which Neville Longbottom guides them through.
Severus Snape knows Harry has returned and threatens to punish any staff or students who aid Harry. Harry confronts Snape, who flees during a duel with Professor McGonagall. McGonagall rouses the Hogwarts community for battle. Luna Lovegood urges Harry to speak to Helena Ravenclaw's ghost. She reveals Voldemort performed "dark magic" on her mother's diadem that is somewhere in the Room of Requirement. In the Chamber of Secrets, Ron and Hermione destroy the Horcrux cup with a Basilisk fang. Draco, Blaise Zabini and Gregory Goyle attack Harry in the Room of Requirement, but Ron and Hermione intervene. Goyle casts an uncontrollable Fiendfyre curse that kills him while Harry, Ron, and Hermione save Malfoy and Zabini and escape on brooms. Outside of the room, Harry stabs the diadem with the Basilisk fang. As Voldemort's army attacks, Harry, seeing into Voldemort's mind, realises that Voldemort's snake Nagini is the final Horcrux. In the boathouse, the trio overhear Voldemort telling Snape that the Elder Wand cannot serve Voldemort until Snape dies; Nagini then viciously attacks Snape. As Snape dies, he gives Harry one of his memories. Meanwhile, Fred Weasley, Remus Lupin, and Nymphadora Tonks are killed in the chaos at Hogwarts.
Harry views Snape's memory in the Pensieve: Snape despised Harry's late father James, who bullied him, but he loved his mother Lily. Following her death, Snape worked with Albus Dumbledore as a double agent amongst the Death Eaters, to protect Harry from Voldemort. Harry also learns that Dumbledore was dying and planned for Snape to kill him. It was Snape who conjured the Patronus doe that led Harry to Gryffindor's sword. Harry also learns that he became an accidental Horcrux when Voldemort's curse originally failed to kill him; Voldemort must now kill Harry to destroy the soul shard within him. Using the Resurrection Stone that had been stored in the Golden Snitch bequeathed to him, Harry summons the spirits of his parents, Sirius Black, and Remus. They comfort him before he surrenders to Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. Voldemort casts the Killing Curse upon Harry, who awakens in limbo. Dumbledore's spirit meets him and explains that Harry is now free of Voldemort, and can choose to return to his body or move on. Harry returns to his body.
Voldemort displays Harry's apparent corpse and demands that Hogwarts surrender. As Neville draws the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat in defiance, Harry reveals he is alive and the Malfoys and many other Death Eaters abandon Voldemort. While Harry confronts Voldemort in a duel throughout the castle, Molly Weasley kills Bellatrix in the Great Hall and Neville decapitates Nagini, destroying the last of the horcruxes. Harry finally defeats Voldemort after the Expelliarmus charm deflects the Killing Curse, rebounding it onto the Dark Lord. After the battle, Harry explains to Ron and Hermione that Voldemort never commanded the Elder Wand. It recognised him as its true master after he had disarmed Draco, who had earlier disarmed its previous owner, Dumbledore, atop the Astronomy Tower. Instead of claiming the Elder Wand, Harry destroys it.
Nineteen years later, Harry married to Ginny, and Ron married to Hermione, proudly watch their children leave for Hogwarts at King's Cross station.
Cast
Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter: A 17-year-old British wizard.
Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley: One of Harry's best friends.
Emma Watson as Hermione Granger: Harry's other best friend.
Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange: A Death Eater and Sirius Black's cousin and murderer.
Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid: Harry's half-giant friend and a former member of staff at Hogwarts.
Michael Gambon as Professor Albus Dumbledore: The late headmaster of Hogwarts.
Warwick Davis as Filius Flitwick: The Charms master and Head of the Ravenclaw house at Hogwarts; and also as Griphook, a goblin and former employee at Gringotts Bank.
John Hurt as Garrick Ollivander: A wandmaker abducted by the Death Eaters.
Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy: Draco Malfoy's father and a disgraced Death Eater.
Helen McCrory as Narcissa Malfoy: Draco's mother and Bellatrix's sister.
Gary Oldman as Sirius Black: Harry's late godfather.
Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape: Former Head of the Slytherin House and Potions and Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher and the new headmaster of Hogwarts.
Maggie Smith as Professor Minerva McGonagall: The Transfiguration teacher and the Head of the Gryffindor house at Hogwarts.
David Thewlis as Remus Lupin: A werewolf member of the Order of the Phoenix and a former Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.
Julie Walters as Molly Weasley: The Weasley matriarch.
Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy: A Death Eater and son of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.
Bonnie Wright as Ginny Weasley: Ron's younger sister and Harry's love interest.
Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom: A schoolfriend and strong supporter of Harry Potter. Neville secretly loves Luna Lovegood.
Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood: A seemingly dotty schoolfriend of Harry, who provides wise counsel at key moments.
Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort: A twisted, evil, power-hungry, powerful wizard, and the founder and supreme leader of the Death Eaters.
Casting
The roles of several minor characters were recast or replaced for this film. For example, Ciarán Hinds assumed the role of Aberforth Dumbledore, Albus Dumbledore's brother and bartender of the Hog's Head inn. In the book, a significant number of characters who have not appeared since some of the earlier novels, reappear to defend Hogwarts in the large, final battle. Director David Yates said, "I want to get them all back", referring to his desire to bring back as many actors who have appeared in the franchise as possible for the climactic battle sequence in the film. Sean Biggerstaff, Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones, Miriam Margolyes, and Emma Thompson reprise their roles from earlier films briefly during the battle scene. For the final scene in the film which is set nineteen years after the film's main story, the actors playing the main characters were made to look older through the use of makeup and special effects. After the initial look of the actors' aged appearances leaked onto the Internet, some fans reacted by opining that Radcliffe and Grint looked too old, while Watson did not appear significantly different at all. After primary filming concluded in June 2010, Yates examined the footage, and concluded that the problem could not be resolved through editing or CGI, and had the sequence re-shot that December, with redesigned makeup.
Production
Filming
Part 2 was filmed back-to-back with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 from 19 February 2009 to 12 June 2010, with reshoots for the epilogue scene taking place at Leavesden Film Studios on 21 December 2010. Yates, who shot the film with director of photography Eduardo Serra, described Part 2 as "operatic, colourful and fantasy-oriented", a "big opera with huge battles".
Originally set for a single theatrical release, the idea to split the book into two parts was suggested by executive producer Lionel Wigram due to, what David Heyman called, "creative imperative". Heyman initially responded negatively to the idea, but Wigram asked, "No, David. How are we going to do it?". After rereading the book and discussing it with screenwriter Steve Kloves, he agreed with the division.
Sets
In an interview with Architectural Digest, production designer Stuart Craig remarked on creating sets for Part 2. Of the Gringotts Wizarding Bank, he said, "our banking hall, like any other, is made of marble and big marble columns. And it has great strength. The fact that the goblins are the bankers and tellers at the counter helps that feeling of grandeur and solidity and the big proportions. That was part of the fun of the set: we exaggerated the size of it, we exaggerated the weight of it, and we even exaggerated the shine of the marble." About the multiplication of treasure in one of the bank's vaults, he noted, "We made literally thousands of pieces for it and vacuum metallised them to be shiny gold and silver. John Richardson, the special effects supervisor, made a floor that was capable of rising on different levels, so there was kind of a physical swelling of the treasure on it."
Craig spoke about the Battle of Hogwarts to Art Insights Magazine, saying that "the great challenge is the destruction of Hogwarts. The sun rising behind the smoke ... the massive remains of destroyed walls, the entrance hall, the entrance of the Great Hall, part of the roof of the Great Hall completely gone, so yeah. A big challenge there and an enjoyable one really – maybe it helped me and the guys in the art department sort of prepare for the end ... we demolished it before we had to strike it completely." When asked about the King's Cross scene near the end of the film, Craig said, "We experimented a lot, quite honestly. I mean it was quite a protracted process really but we did experiment the sense of it being very burnt out very very kind of white – so we experimented with underlit floors, we experimented with different kind of white covering everything: white paint, white fabric, and the cameraman was involved in how much to expose it, and a series of camera tests were done, so we got there but with a great deal of preparation and research."
Visual effects
Visual effects supervisor Tim Burke said that "It was such a major job to stage the Battle of Hogwarts, and we had to do it in different stages of production. We had shots with complex linking camera moves from wide overviews, to flying into windows and interior spaces. So, we took the plunge at the end of 2008, and started rebuilding the school digitally with Double Negative." He went on to say: "It's taken two years – getting renders out, texturing every facet of the building, constructing interiors to see through windows, building a destruction version of the school. We can design shots with the knowledge that we have this brilliant digital miniature that we can do anything with. With a practical Hogwarts, we would have shot it last summer and been so tied down. Instead, as David Yates finds the flow and structure, we are able to handle new concepts and ideas."
On the quality of 3D in film, Burke told Los Angeles Times, "I think it's good, actually. I think people are going to be really pleased. I know everyone's a little nervous and sceptical of 3D these days, but the work has been done very, very well. We've done over 200 shots in 3D and in the visual effects as well, because so much of it is CG, so the results are very, very good. I think everyone's going to be really impressed with it, actually." Producer David Heyman spoke to SFX magazine about the 3D conversion, saying that "The way David Yates is approaching 3D is he's trying to approach it from a character and story point of view. Trying to use the sense of isolation, of separation that sometimes 3D gives you, to heighten that at appropriate moments. So we're approaching it in a storytelling way."
In 2012, the visual effects in the film were nominated for an Oscar. The film also won the BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects at the 65th BAFTA Awards in 2012.
Music
It was confirmed that the composer for Part 1, Alexandre Desplat, was set to return for Part 2. In an interview with Film Music Magazine, Desplat stated that scoring Part 2 is "a great challenge" and that he has "a lot of expectations to fulfill and a great deal of work" ahead of him. In a separate interview, Desplat also made note that John Williams’ themes will be present in the film "much more than in Part 1". The soundtrack for the film was nominated for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards.
Distribution
Marketing
In March 2011, the first preview for Deathly Hallows – Part 2 was released revealing new footage and new interviews from the starring cast. The first United States poster was released on 28 March 2011, with the caption "It All Ends 7.15" (referring to its international release date). On 27 April 2011 the first theatrical trailer for Part 2 was released. The trailer revealed a range of new and old footage. The IMAX trailer for the film was released with IMAX screenings of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides on 20 May 2011. During the MTV Movie Awards on 5 June 2011, Emma Watson presented a sneak peek of the film.
Theatrical release
On 2 April 2011, a test screening of the film was held in Chicago, with Yates, Heyman, Barron and editor Mark Day in attendance. The film had its world premiere on at Trafalgar Square in London. The United States premiere was held in New York City at Lincoln Center on . Although filmed in 2D, the film was converted into 3D in post-production and was released in both RealD 3D and IMAX 3-D.
The film was originally scheduled to open in Indonesia on 13 July 2011. The Indonesian government levied a new value added tax on royalties from foreign films in February 2011, causing three film studios, including Warner Brothers, to halt the importation of their films, including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 into the country. The film was not released to cinemas in the Kingdom of Jordan due to recently enforced taxes on films.
On 10 June, one month before release, tickets went on sale. On 16 June 2011, Part 2 received a 12A certificate from the British Board of Film Classification, who note that the film "contains moderate threat, injury detail and language", becoming the only Harry Potter film to receive a warning for "injury detail". At midnight 15 July, Part 2 screened in 3,800 cinemas. In the United States, it played in 4,375 cinemas, 3,100 3D cinemas and 274 IMAX cinemas, the widest release for an IMAX, 3D and Harry Potter film.
Home media
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 was released on 11 November 2011 in the United States in four formats: a one-disc standard DVD, a two-disc standard DVD special edition, a one-disc standard Blu-ray, and three-Disc Blu-ray 2D Combo Pack (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy). In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the film was released on 2 December 2011 in three formats: a two-disc standard DVD, a three-disc Blu-ray 2D Combo Pack (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy), and a four-disc Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray 2D + DVD + Digital Copy). The film set the record for fastest-selling pre-order DVD and Blu-ray on Amazon.com, just two days into the pre-order period.
Deathly Hallows – Part 2 sold 2.71 million Blu-ray units ($60.75 million) in three days (Friday to Sunday). It also sold 2.83 million DVD units ($42.22 million) during its debut. By 18 July 2012 it had sold 4.71 million Blu-ray units ($99.33 million) and 6.47 million DVD units ($88.96 million).
On 28 March 2017, Deathly Hallows – Part 2 made its Ultra HD Blu-ray debut, along with Deathly Hallows - Part 1, The Half-Blood Prince, and Order of the Phoenix.
Reception
Box office
Prior to its release, the film was predicted by box office analysts to break records, citing the anticipation built up over the course of 10 years.Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 grossed $381,409,310 in the United States and Canada, along with $960,813,480 in other markets, for a worldwide total of $1,342,222,791. In worldwide earnings, it was the third-highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing film of 2011, the highest-grossing film in the Harry Potter franchise, and the highest-grossing book adaptation. It also became the highest-grossing film for Warner Bros. as well as the highest-grossing release from parent company WarnerMedia, surpassing The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Part 2 set a worldwide opening-weekend record with $483.2 million. It set a worldwide IMAX opening-weekend record with $23.2 million. It set the worldwide record as the fastest film to gross $500 million (6 days), $600 million (8 days), $700 million (10 days), $800 million (12 days), and $900 million (15 days). On 30 July 2011, the film crossed the $1 billion mark. It tied the 19-day grossing record that was set by Avatar.
United States and Canada
In the US and Canada, it is the 27th-highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing film of 2011, the highest-grossing Harry Potter film, the highest-grossing children's book adaptation, the highest-grossing fantasy/live action film and the 13th-highest-grossing 3-D film. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold more than 40 million tickets. It set new records in advance ticket sales with $32 million, in its midnight opening with $43.5 million and in its IMAX midnight opening with $2 million. It grossed $91.1 million on its opening Friday, setting a Friday-gross record as well as single- and opening-day records. It also set an opening-weekend record with $169.2 million, an IMAX opening-weekend record of $15.2 million and opening-weekend record for a 3-D film. Although 3-D enhanced the film's earning potential, only 43% of the opening gross came from 3-D venues. This means only $72.8 million of the opening-weekend grosses originated from 3-D showings, the second-largest number at the time.
It also scored the largest three-day and four-day gross, the sixth-highest-grossing opening week (Friday to Thursday) with $226.2 million, and even the seventh-largest seven-day gross. It fell precipitously by 84% on its second Friday and by 72% during its second weekend overall, grossing $47.4 million, which is the largest second-weekend drop for any film that opened to more than $90 million. Still, it managed to become the fastest-grossing film in the franchise and also achieved the second-largest ten-day gross ever at the time (now eighth). In its third weekend, the movie surpassed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to become the highest-grossing film of the franchise in the US & Canada.
Other markets
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 became the third-highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing 2011 film, the highest-grossing Warner Bros. film and the highest-grossing Harry Potter film. On its opening day, Deathly Hallows – Part 2 grossed $43.6 million from 26 countries, placing it 86% ahead of Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and 49% higher than Half-Blood Prince. From Wednesday until Sunday, on its 5-day opening weekend, it set an opening-weekend record outside the US and Canada by earning $314 million. The average 3D share of Deathly Hallows – Part 2 was 60%, which was lower than the 3D share for Transformers: Dark of the Moon (70%) and On Stranger Tides (66%). On its second weekend, it held to the top spot, but fell precipitously by 62% to $120.2 million despite minor competition. This amount is about the same as what On Stranger Tides made from its second weekend ($124.3 million). Deathly Hallows – Part 2 was in first place at the box office outside North America for four consecutive weekends.
In the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta it brought in a record $14.8 million on its first day. On its opening weekend it earned £23,753,171 in the United Kingdom, marking the second largest opening weekend in 2011. Its performance did not surpass that of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in 2004, which earned £23,882,688 on its opening weekend. In United States dollars, its opening weekend was an all-time record $38.3 million, ahead of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ($33.5 million). The film also achieved the largest single-day gross on its first Saturday and the largest opening week with $57.6 million. The film made a total of £73.1 million ($117.2 million) at the United Kingdom box office, making it the tenth-highest-grossing film. It also is the highest-grossing film of 2011 and the highest-grossing Wizarding World film.
Deathly Hallows – Part 2 also set opening-day records in Mexico ($6.1 million), Australia ($7.5 million), France and the Maghreb region ($7.1 million), Italy ($4.6 million), Sweden ($2.1 million), Norway ($1.8 million), Denmark ($1.6 million), the Netherlands ($1.7 million), Belgium ($1.4 million), the Czech Republic ($2.0 million), Argentina ($961,000), Finland ($749,000) and Hong Kong ($808,000). It also established new Harry Potter opening-day records in Japan ($5.7 million), Brazil ($4.4 million), Russia and the CIS ($4.2 million), Spain ($3.3 million) and Poland ($1.25 million).
Deathly Hallows – Part 2 set opening weekend records in India with 15 crores ($3.41 million), Australia with $19.6 million, New Zealand with $2.46 million, Brazil with $11. million, Scandinavia with $18.5 million, Mexico with $15.9 million and many other Latin American and European countries.
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96% based on 331 reviews, with an average score of 8.30/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Thrilling, powerfully acted, and visually dazzling, Deathly Hallows Part II brings the Harry Potter franchise to a satisfying – and suitably magical – conclusion." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating to reviews, the film has a score of 85 out of 100 based on 41 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The film received a score of 93 from professional critics at the Broadcast Film Critics Association; it is the organisation's highest-rated Harry Potter film. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Philip Womack in The Daily Telegraph commented, "This is monumental cinema, awash with gorgeous tones, and carrying an ultimate message that will resonate with every viewer, young or old: there is darkness in all of us, but we can overcome it." He further expressed that David Yates "transmutes [the book] into a genuinely terrifying spectacle." Another review was released on the same day from Evening Standard, who rated the film four out of five and stated "Millions of children, parents, and those who should know better won't need reminding what a Horcrux is – and director David Yates does not let them down. In fact, in some ways, he helps make up for the shortcomings of the final book." The Daily Express remarked that the film showcases "a terrifying showdown that easily equals Lord of the Rings or Star Wars in terms of a dramatic and memorable battle between good and evil".
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four and said, "The finale conjures up enough awe and solemnity to serve as an appropriate finale and a dramatic contrast to the lighthearted (relative) innocence of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone all those magical years ago." Mark Kermode from the BBC said that the film is a "pretty solid and ambitious adaptation of a very complex book", but he criticised the post-converted 3D. Christy Lemire of the Associated Press gave the film three and a half out of four and said "While Deathly Hallows: Part 2 offers long-promised answers, it also dares to pose some eternal questions, and it'll stay with you after the final chapter has closed." Richard Roeper, also from the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film an A+ rating and said: "This is a masterful and worthy final chapter in one of the best franchises ever put to film."
In one of the few negative reviews, Brian Gibson of Vue Weekly described the film as "deadly dull" and a "visual overstatement". Other reviews criticised the decision to split the novel into two cinematic parts, with Ben Mortimer of The Daily Telegraph writing "Deathly Hallows – Part 2 isn't a film. It's HALF a film ... it's going to feel somewhat emotionless." Other critics wrote of the film's runtime; Alonso Duralde from The Wrap said, "If there's one substantial flaw to the film, it's that this cavalcade of people and places and objects can barely fit in the 130-minute running time." Rebecca Gillie from The Oxford Student gave the film two out of five and wrote: "At the end of [the film] there is nothing that stays with you once you've left the cinema."
Accolades
The film won a number of accolades and nominations. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 was nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Makeup, and Best Visual Effects at the 84th Academy Awards. At the 65th BAFTA awards, the film won the Best Visual Effects award, and was nominated in the Best Sound, Best Production Design and Best Make-up and Hair categories.
The film was nominated for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012. It won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture. The film scored 10 nominations at the annual Saturn Awards, Winning for Best Fantasy Film. In the 2011 Scream Awards, the film received a total of 14 nominations, and won in the Best Scream-Play, Best Fantasy Actor (Daniel Radcliffe), Best Villain (Ralph Fiennes), Best F/X, and Holy Sh*t scene of the Year categories.
Future
In November 2021, Chris Columbus, who previously directed the first two instalments of the Harry Potter film series, expressed interest in directing a film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, with the intent of having the main cast members reprise their roles.
References
External links
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 at The Numbers
2011 3D films
2011 fantasy films
American 3D films
American high fantasy films
American sequel films
BAFTA winners (films)
British 3D films
British fantasy films
British sequel films
Films about the afterlife
Films about rebellions
Films directed by David Yates
Films produced by David Barron
Films produced by David Heyman
Films produced by J. K. Rowling
Films scored by Alexandre Desplat
Films set in 1998
Films set in 2017
Films set in England
Films set in Scotland
Films set in London
Films shot at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden
Films shot in England
Films shot in London
Films shot in Scotland
Films shot in Wales
Films with screenplays by Steve Kloves
07
Heyday Films films
IMAX films
Warner Bros. films
Children's fantasy films
Limbo
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Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. The district's boundaries are roughly 14th Street to the south, the Hudson River and West Street to the west, and Sixth Avenue to the east, with its northern boundary variously described as near the upper 20s
or 34th Street, the next major crosstown street to the north. To the northwest of Chelsea is the neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, as well as Hudson Yards; to the northeast are the Garment District and the remainder of Midtown South; to the east are NoMad and the Flatiron District; to the southwest is the Meatpacking District; and to the south and southeast are the West Village and the remainder of Greenwich Village. Chelsea is named after the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London, England.
Chelsea contains the Chelsea Historic District and its extension, which were designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1970 and 1981 respectively. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and expanded in 1982 to include contiguous blocks containing particularly significant examples of period architecture.
The neighborhood is primarily residential, with a mix of tenements, apartment blocks, city housing projects, townhouses, and renovated rowhouses, but its many retail businesses reflect the ethnic and social diversity of the population. The area has a large LGBTQ population. Chelsea is also known as one of the centers of the city's art world, with over 200 galleries in the neighborhood. due to the area's gentrification, there is a widening income gap between the wealthy living in luxury buildings and the poor living in housing projects, who are, at times, across the street from each other.
Chelsea is a part of Manhattan Community District 4 and Manhattan Community District 5, and its primary ZIP Codes are 10001 and 10011. It is patrolled by the 10th Precinct of the New York City Police Department.
History
Early development
Chelsea takes its name from the estate and Georgian-style house of retired British Major Thomas Clarke, who obtained the property when he bought the farm of Jacob Somerindyck on August 16, 1750. The land was bounded by what would become 21st and 24th Streets, from the Hudson River to Eighth Avenue. Clarke chose the name "Chelsea" after a district in London, England. Clarke passed the estate on to his daughter, Charity, who, with her husband Benjamin Moore, added land on the south of the estate, extending it to 19th Street. The house was the birthplace of their son, Clement Clarke Moore, who in turn inherited the property. Moore is generally credited with writing "A Visit From St. Nicholas" and was the author of the first Greek and Hebrew lexicons printed in the United States.
In 1827, Moore gave the land of his apple orchard to the Episcopal Diocese of New York for the General Theological Seminary, which built its brownstone Gothic, tree-shaded campus south of the manor house. Despite his objections to the Commissioner's Plan of 1811, which ran the new Ninth Avenue through the middle of his estate, Moore began the development of Chelsea with the help of James N. Wells, dividing it up into lots along Ninth Avenue and selling them to well-heeled New Yorkers. Covenants in the deeds of sale specified what could be built on the land – stables, manufacturing and commercial uses were forbidden – as well as architectural details of the buildings.
Industrialization
The new neighborhood thrived for three decades, with many single family homes and rowhouses, in the process expanding past the original boundaries of Clarke's estate, but an industrial zone also began to develop along the Hudson. In 1847 the Hudson River Railroad laid its freight tracks up a right-of-way between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, separating Chelsea from the Hudson River waterfront. By the time of the Civil War, the area west of Ninth Avenue and below 20th Street was the location of numerous distilleries making turpentine and camphene, a lamp fuel. In addition, the huge Manhattan Gas Works complex, which converted bituminous coal into gas, was located at Ninth and 18th Street.
The industrialization of western Chelsea brought immigrant populations from many countries to work in the factories, including a large number of Irish immigrants, who dominated work on the Hudson River piers that lined the nearby waterfront and the truck terminals integrated with the freight railroad spur. As well as the piers, warehouses and factories, the industrial area west of Tenth Avenue also included lumberyards and breweries, and tenements built to house the workers. With the immigrant population came the political domination of the neighborhood by the Tammany Hall machine, as well as festering ethnic tensions: around 67 people died in a riot between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants on July 12, 1871, which took place around 24th Street and Eighth Avenue. The social problems of the area's workers provoked John Lovejoy Elliot to form the Hudson Guild in 1897, one of the first settlement houses – private organizations designed to provide social services.
Recent history
A theater district had formed in the area by 1869, and soon West 23rd Street was the center of American theater, led by Pike's Opera House (1868, demolished 1960), on the northwest corner of Eighth Avenue. Chelsea was an early center for the motion picture industry before World War I. Some of Mary Pickford's first pictures were made on the top floors of an armory building at 221 West 26th Street, while other studios were located on 23rd and 21st Streets.
London Terrace was one of the world's largest apartment blocks when it opened in 1930, with a swimming pool, solarium, gymnasium, and doormen dressed as London bobbies. Other major housing complexes in the Chelsea area are Penn South, a 1962 cooperative housing development sponsored by the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union, and the New York City Housing Authority-built and -operated Fulton Houses and Chelsea-Elliot Houses.
The massive 23-story Art Deco Walker Building, which spans the block between 17th and 18th Streets just off of Seventh Avenue, was built in the early 1930s. It typifies the real estate activity of the district, as it has been converted in 2012 to residential apartments on the top 16 floors, with Verizon retaining the lower seven floors.
In the early 1940s, tons of uranium for the Manhattan Project were stored in the Baker & Williams Warehouse at 513-519 West 20th Street. The uranium was removed and a decontamination project at the site was completed early 1990s.
On September 17, 2016, there was an explosion outside a building on 23rd Street, which injured 29 people; police located and removed a second, undetonated pressure cooker bomb on 27th Street. A suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, was captured two days later after a gunfight in Linden, New Jersey.
Demographics
For census purposes, the New York City government classifies Chelsea as part of a larger neighborhood tabulation area called Hudson Yards-Chelsea-Flat Iron-Union Square. Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Hudson Yards-Chelsea-Flat Iron-Union Square was 70,150, a change of 14,311 (20.4%) from the 55,839 counted in 2000. Covering an area of , the neighborhood had a population density of . The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 65.1% (45,661) White, 5.7% (4,017) African American, 0.1% (93) Native American, 11.8% (8,267) Asian, 0% (21) Pacific Islander, 0.4% (261) from other races, and 2.3% (1,587) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 14.6% (10,243) of the population.
The entirety of Community District 4, which comprises Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, had 122,119 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 83.1 years. This is higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are adults: a plurality (45%) are between the ages of 25–44, while 26% are between 45 and 64, and 13% are 65 or older. The ratio of youth and college-aged residents was lower, at 9% and 8% respectively.
As of 2017, the median household income in Community Districts 4 and 5 (including Midtown Manhattan) was $101,981, though the median income in Chelsea individually was $116,160. In 2018, an estimated 11% of Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen residents lived in poverty, compared to 14% in all of Manhattan and 20% in all of New York City. One in twenty residents (5%) were unemployed, compared to 7% in Manhattan and 9% in New York City. Rent burden, or the percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 41% in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, compared to the boroughwide and citywide rates of 45% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation, , Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen are considered to be high-income relative to the rest of the city and not gentrifying.
Culture
People of many different cultures live in Chelsea. Chelsea is famous for having a large LGBTQ population, with one of Chelsea's census tracts reporting that 22% of its residents were gay couples, and is known for its social diversity and inclusion. Eighth Avenue is a center for LGBT-oriented shopping and dining, and from 16th to 22nd Streets between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, mid-nineteenth-century brick and brownstone townhouses are still occupied, a few even restored to single family use.
The stores of Chelsea reflect the ethnic and social diversity of the area's population. The Chelsea Lofts district – the former fur and flower district – is located roughly between Sixth and Seventh Avenues from 23rd to 30th streets. The McBurney YMCA on West 23rd Street, commemorated in the hit Village People song Y.M.C.A., sold its home and relocated in 2002 to a new facility on 14th Street, the neighborhood's southern border.
Most recently, Chelsea has become an alternative shopping destination, starring the likes of Barneys CO-OP — which replaced the much larger original Barneys flagship store — Comme des Garçons, Balenciaga boutiques, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, and Christian Louboutin. Chelsea Market, on the ground floor of the former Nabisco Building, is a destination for food lovers.
In the late 1990s, New York's visual arts community began a gradual transition away from SoHo, due to increasing rents and competition from upscale retailers for the large and airy spaces that art galleries require, and the area of West Chelsea between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues and 16th and 28th Streets has become a new global centers of contemporary art, home to over 200 art galleries that are home to modern art from both upcoming and established artists. Along with the art galleries, Chelsea is home to the Rubin Museum of Art, with a focus on Himalayan art; the Graffiti Research Lab and New York Live Arts, a producing and presenting organization of dance and other movement-based arts. The community, in fact, is home to many highly regarded performance venues, among them the Joyce Theater, one of the city's premier modern dance emporiums, and The Kitchen, a center for cutting-edge theatrical and visual arts.
Above 23rd Street, by the Hudson River, the neighborhood is post-industrial, featuring the elevated High Line viaduct, which follows the river all through Chelsea. The elevated rail line was the successor to the street-level freight line original built through Chelsea in 1847, which was the cause of numerous fatal accidents, so it was elevated in the early 1930s by the New York Central Railroad. It fell out of use in the 1960s through 1980 and was originally slated to be torn down, but in the early 2000s, it was redesigned and converted into a highly used aerial greenway and rails-to-trails park.
With a change in zoning resolution in conjunction with the development of the High Line, Chelsea experienced a new construction boom, with projects by notable architects such as Shigeru Ban, Neil Denari, Jean Nouvel, and Frank Gehry. The neighborhood was quickly gentrifying, with small businesses being replaced by big-box retailers and technology and fashion stores. With this development, more wealthy residents moved in, further widening an already-existing income gap with public-housing residents. In 2015, the average yearly household income in most of Chelsea was about $140,000. On the other hand, in the area's two public-housing developments – the Chelsea-Elliot Houses, between 25th Street, Ninth Avenue, 28th Street, and Tenth Avenue; and Fulton Houses, between 16th Street, Ninth Avenue, 19th Street, and Tenth Avenue – the average income was less than $30,000. At the same time, the area's Puerto Rican enclaves and rent-subsidized housing, especially in Penn South, was being replaced by high-rent studios. This resulted in large income disparities across the neighborhood; one block in particular – 25th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues – had the Elliot Houses on its north side and two million-dollar residences on its south side.
The Chelsea neighborhood is served by two weekly newspapers: the Chelsea-Clinton News and Chelsea Now.
West Chelsea refers to the western portion of Chelsea, previously known as Gasoline Alley, much of which was previously a manufacturing area and has since been rezoned to allow for high-rise residential uses. It is often considered the area of Chelsea between the Hudson River to the west and Tenth Avenue to the east, a portion of which was designated a historic district in 2008. A 2008 article in The New York Times showed the eastern boundary of West Chelsea as Eighth Avenue for the area between 14th and 23rd streets, Ninth Avenue between 23rd and 25th, and Tenth Avenue between 25th and 29th.
Landmarks and places of interest
Culinary
The Chelsea Market, located in a restored historic Nabisco factory and headquarters, is a festival marketplace that hosts a variety of shopping and dining options, including bakeries, restaurants, a fish market, wine store, and many others.
The Empire Diner is a former art moderne diner designed by Fodero Dining Car Company. Built in 1946, it was altered in 1979 by Carl Laanes. Located at 210 Tenth Avenue at 22nd Street, it has been seen in several movies and mentioned in Billy Joel's song "Great Wall of China". The diner closed its doors for good on May 15, 2010, had a brief stint as "The Highliner", and most recently re-opened under its original name in January 2014 before closing permanently in December 2015 due to failures to pay rent.
Peter McManus Cafe, a bar and restaurant on Seventh Avenue at 19th Street, is among the oldest family-owned and -operated bars in the city.
Cultural
Pike's Opera House was built in 1868, and bought the next year by James Fisk and Jay Gould, who renamed it the Grand Opera House. Located on the corner of Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street, it survived until 1960 as an RKO movie theater.
The Irish Repertory Theatre is an Off-Broadway theatrical company on West 22nd Street producing plays by Irish and Irish-American writers.
Joyce Theater, located in the former Elgin Theater at 175 Eighth Avenue, is in a 1941 movie house that closed in 1978. The Elgin was completely renovated to create in the Joyce a venue suitable for dance, and was reopened in 1982.
The Kitchen is a performance space at 512 West 19th Street. It was founded in Greenwich Village in 1971 by Steina and Woody Vasulka, taking its name from the original location, the kitchen of the Mercer Arts Center.
The warehouse building at 530 West 27th Street, which was the site of The Sound Factory & Twilo, as well as several other megaclubs in the 1980s and 1990s, was acquired in 2011 by the British theater company Punchdrunk, who converted it into "The McKittrick Hotel", a five-story, performance space housing their immersive site-specific theatrical production, Sleep No More. The building, along with those at 532 and 542 West 27th Street, is also the location of several restaurants and event venues that relate to the themes and stories told in the hotel, such as 'Speakeasy Magick', featuring Todd Robbins, Jason Suran, and Matthew Holtzclaw.
New York Live Arts is a dance organization located at 219 West 19th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.
The Rubin Museum of Art is a museum dedicated to the collection, display, and preservation of the art of the Himalayas and surrounding regions, especially that of Tibet. It is located at 150 West 17th Street between the Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) and Seventh Avenue.
Industrial and commercial
The New York Office of Google occupies the full city block between 15th & 16th Streets, and from Eighth to Ninth Avenues. Located in 111 Eighth Avenue, the building was once Inland Terminal 1 of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The Starrett-Lehigh Building, a huge full-block freight terminal and warehouse on West 26th Street between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues, was built in 1930-1931 as a joint venture of the Starett real estate firm and the Lehigh Valley Railroad, and was engineered so that trains could pull directly into the ground floor of the building. Designed by Cory & Cory, the industrial behemoth was so architecturally notable that it was included in the Museum of Modern Art's 1932 "International Style" exhibition, one of only a few American buildings to be so honored. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1966.
The Hudson Yards rail-yard development is located at the northern edge of Chelsea, within the Hudson Yards neighborhood. The project's centerpiece is a mixed-use real estate development by Related Companies. According to its master plan, created by master planner Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, Hudson Yards is expected to consist of 16 skyscrapers containing more than of new office, residential, and retail space. Among its components will be of commercial office space, a retail center with two levels of restaurants, cafes, markets and bars, a hotel, a cultural space, about 5,000 residences, a 750-seat school, and of public open space. The development, located mainly above and around the West Side Yard, will create a new neighborhood that overlaps with Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen.
Residential
Hotel Chelsea, built 1883–1885 and designed by Hubert, Pirsson & Co., was New York's first cooperative apartment complex and was the tallest building in the city until 1902. After the theater district migrated uptown and the neighborhood became commercialized, the residential building folded and in 1905 it was turned into a hotel. The hotel attracted attention as the place where Dylan Thomas had been staying when he died in 1953 at St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village, and for the 1978 slaying of Nancy Spungen for which Sid Vicious was accused. The hotel has been the home of numerous celebrities, including Brendan Behan, Thomas Wolfe, Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams and Virgil Thomson, and the subject of books, films (Chelsea Girls, 1966) and music.
The London Terrace apartment complex on West 23rd was one of the world's largest apartment blocks when it opened in 1930, with a swimming pool, solarium, gymnasium, and doormen dressed as London bobbies. It was designed by Farrar and Watmough. It takes its name from the fashionable mid-19th century cottages which were once located there.
Penn South is a large limited-equity housing cooperative constructed in 1962 by the United Housing Foundation and financed by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. The development includes 2,820 apartments and covers six city blocks between 8th and 9th Avenue and 23rd and 29th Street. In 2012, there were 6,000 names on a waiting list of prospective residents looking to purchase a unit in the development. Under the terms of agreements reached with the City of New York in 1986 and 2002, and separately with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Penn South's eligibility for tax abatements offered by the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program has been extended to 2052.
Other
The Chelsea Piers were the city's primary luxury ocean liner terminal from 1910 until 1935, when the growing size of ships made the complex inadequate. The RMS Titanic was headed to Pier 60 at the piers and the RMS Carpathia brought survivors to Pier 54 in the complex, which was destroyed in 2018 although ironwork remains. The northern piers are now part of an entertainment and sports complex operated by Roland W. Betts, and the southern piers are part of Hudson River Park. The Hudson River Park, designed as a joint city/state park with non-traditional uses, runs along the Hudson River waterfront from 59th Street to the Battery and comprises most of the associated piers.
Chelsea Park is located between 9th and 10th Avenues, and between 27th and 28th Streets. It contains baseball diamonds, basketball courts and six handball courts.
Chelsea Studios, a sound stage on 26th Street, has been operating since 1914, and numerous movies and television shows have been produced there.
The Church of the Holy Apostles was built in 1845–1848 to a design by Minard Lefever, with additions by Lefever in 1853–1854, and transepts by Charles Babcock added in 1858, this Italianate church was designated a New York City landmark in 1966 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is Lefever's only surviving building in Manhattan. The building, which featured an octagonal spire, was burned in a serious fire in 1990, but stained glass windows by William Jay Bolton survived, and the church reopened in April 1994 after a major restoration. The Episcopal parish is notable for hosting the city's largest program to feed the poor, and is the second and larger home of the LGBT-oriented synagogue, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah.
The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church's college-like close is sometimes called "Chelsea Square." It consists of a city block of tree-shaded lawns between Ninth and Tenth Avenues and West 20th and 21st Streets. The campus is ringed by more than a dozen brick and brownstone buildings in Gothic Revival style. The oldest building on the campus dates from 1836. Most of the rest were designed as a group by architect Charles Coolidge Haight, under the guidance of the Dean, Augustus Hoffman.
Police and crime
Chelsea is patrolled by the 10th Precinct of the NYPD, located at 230 West 20th Street. The 10th Precinct ranked 61st safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010. , with a non-fatal assault rate of 34 per 100,000 people, Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen's rate of violent crimes per capita is less than that of the city as a whole. The incarceration rate of 313 per 100,000 people is lower than that of the city as a whole.
The 10th Precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 74.8% between 1990 and 2018. The precinct reported 1 murder, 19 rapes, 81 robberies, 103 felony assaults, 78 burglaries, 744 grand larcenies, and 26 grand larcenies auto in 2018.
Fire safety
Chelsea is served by two fire stations of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY). Engine Co. 1/Ladder Co. 24 is located at 142 West 31st Street, while Engine Co. 3/Ladder Co. 12/Battalion 7 is located at 146 West 19th Street. In addition, FDNY EMS Station 7 is located at 512 West 23rd Street.
Health
Preterm births in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen are the same as the city average, though teenage births are less common. In Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, there were 87 preterm births per 1,000 live births (compared to 87 per 1,000 citywide), and 9.9 teenage births per 1,000 live births (compared to 19.3 per 1,000 citywide). Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen have a low population of residents who are uninsured. In 2018, this population of uninsured residents was estimated to be 11%, slightly less than the citywide rate of 12%.
The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen is , more than the city average. Eleven percent of Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen residents are smokers, which is less than the city average of 14% of residents being smokers. In Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, 10% of residents are obese, 5% are diabetic, and 18% have high blood pressure—compared to the citywide averages of 24%, 11%, and 28% respectively. In addition, 14% of children are obese, compared to the citywide average of 20%.
Ninety-one percent of residents eat some fruits and vegetables every day, which is higher than the city's average of 87%. In 2018, 86% of residents described their health as "good," "very good," or "excellent," more than the city's average of 78%. For every supermarket in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, there are 7 bodegas.
The nearest major hospitals are Beth Israel Medical Center in Stuyvesant Town, as well as the Bellevue Hospital Center and NYU Langone Medical Center in Kips Bay.
Post offices and ZIP Codes
Chelsea is located within two primary ZIP Codes. The area north of 24th Street is in 10001 while the area south of 24th Street is in 10011. The United States Postal Service operates four post offices in Chelsea:
James A. Farley Station – 421 8th Avenue; the main post office for New York City
London Terrace Station – 234 10th Avenue
Old Chelsea Station – 217 West 18th Street
Port Authority Station – 74 9th Avenue
In addition, the Centralized Parcel Post and the Morgan General Mail Facility are located at 341 9th Avenue. The USPS also operates a vehicle maintenance facility on the block bounded by 11th Avenue, 24th Street, 12th Avenue, and 26th Street. This facility has the ZIP Code 10199.
Education
Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen generally have a higher rate of college-educated residents than the rest of the city . A majority of residents age 25 and older (78%) have a college education or higher, while 6% have less than a high school education and 17% are high school graduates or have some college education. By contrast, 64% of Manhattan residents and 43% of city residents have a college education or higher. The percentage of Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen students excelling in math rose from 61% in 2000 to 80% in 2011, and reading achievement increased from 66% to 68% during the same time period.
Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is lower than the rest of New York City. In Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen, 16% of elementary school students missed twenty or more days per school year, less than the citywide average of 20%. Additionally, 81% of high school students in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen graduate on time, more than the citywide average of 75%.
Schools
There are numerous public schools in Chelsea, including PS 11, also known as the William T. Harris School; PS 33, the Chelsea School; the O. Henry School (IS 70); Liberty High School For Newcomers; Lab School; the Museum School; and the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex, which houses six small schools.
The Bayard Rustin Educational Complex was founded as Textile High School in 1930, later renamed to Straubenmuller Textile High School, then Charles Evans Hughes High School. In the 1990s, it was renamed the Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities after civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. The high school closed in 2012 after a grading scandal, but the building had already started being used as a "vertical campus" housing multiple small schools. Quest to Learn, Hudson High School of Learning Technologies, Humanities Preparatory Academy, James Baldwin School, Landmark High School, and Manhattan Business Academy are the six constituent schools in the complex.
Private schools in the neighborhood include Avenues: The World School, a K-12 school; and the Catholic Xavier High School, a secondary school.
Chelsea is also home to the Fashion Institute of Technology, a specialized SUNY unit established in 1944 that serves as a training ground for the city's fashion and design industries. The School of Visual Arts, a for-profit art school, and the public High School of Fashion Industries also have a presence in the design fields.
The neighborhood is also home to the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, the oldest seminary in the Anglican Communion. The Center for Jewish History, a consortium of several national research organizations, is a unified library, exhibition, conference, lecture, and performance venue, located on 16th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
Libraries
The New York Public Library (NYPL) operates two branches in Chelsea. The Muhlenberg branch is located at 209 West 23rd Street. The three-story Carnegie library building opened in 1906 and was renovated in 2000. The Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library is located at 40 West 20th Street. The current building opened in 1990; the Library of Congress has designated the Heiskell branch as the city's "Regional Library of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped" for Braille media and audiobooks.
Transportation
The neighborhood is served by the New York City Bus routes. New York City Subway routes include the on Seventh Avenue, the on Eighth Avenue, and the on Sixth Avenue. The 34th Street – Hudson Yards station on the opened in September 2015 with its main entrance in Chelsea.
Notable people
Andy Bey (born 1939), jazz singer and pianist.
See also
List of neighborhoods in Manhattan
Chelsea Corners
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Manhattan Community Board 4—The Chelsea & Clinton/Hell's Kitchen Community Board
Neighborhoods in Manhattan
Gay villages in New York (state)
Art gallery districts
LGBT culture in New York City
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Manhattan
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Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).
Events
January – The Ogura Hyakunin Isshu Cultural Foundation, founded by the Kyoto, Japan, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, opens the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu Hall of Fame, dedicated to the anthology of 100 poems by 100 poets compiled by Fujiwara no Teika in c. 1235. The popularity of the anthology endures, and a Japanese card game, Uta-garuta, uses cards with the poems printed on it.
March 29 – The Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is sold.
May – The Poetry Out Loud recitation contest is created this year by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Poetry Foundation in the United States to increase awareness in the art of performing poetry, with a top prize a $20,000 scholarship. State finalists perform in Washington, D.C. during the second week of the month.
July 14
Kazakh poet Aron Atabek is arrested after riot police and bulldozers arrive at the shanty town of Shanyrak, Kazakhstan for its demolition. Atabek is sentenced to 18 years in prison for alleged offences relating to the clash this day between protesters and police.
The Times Literary Supplement reports on the discovery of a missing copy of Shelley's Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, an 1811 pamphlet containing a 172-line poem which criticizes war, politics and religion; although published anonymously, the poem is thought to have contributed to the rebel poet's expulsion from the University of Oxford (which acquires the unique copy of the pamphlet in 2015).
August 15 – The existence of two early poems by Ted Hughes, written into a school exercise book, is announced; one an early version of "Song" which appeared in his first collection.
November 1 – A Sylvia Plath sonnet from her college years is discovered and first published by Blackbird, an online literary journal run by the English Department at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
November 10 – A new series, "The Best of Irish Poetry" is launched by Southword Editions in Ireland with the 80-page The Best of Irish Poetry 2007 The project is under the direction of Patrick Cotter, with Colm Breathnach as Irish-language editor and Maurice Riordan as English-language (or Hiberno-English) editor. "Quite often readers abroad are presented with a selection of Irish poets restricted to those who are first published in the USA or the UK," Cotter wrote. "This annual series will present a more general selection generated by more informed pundits."
November – The most influential American poets of all time are Walt Whitman, T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens and Sylvia Plath, according to Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine. Wiman names the poets in a sidebar article to a December The Atlantic Monthly cover story about the "100 Most Influential Americans" — no poet makes it on that larger list.
French public notary Patrick Huet unveils Pieces of Hope to the Echo of the World in Lyon. It is reportedly the longest modern hand-written poem in the world.
BLATT, an English-language literary magazine and publishing imprint is started in Prague, Czech Republic.
Pakistani poet Ahmed Faraz, who writes in Urdu, returns one of his country's highest civilian honors, the Hilal-e-Imtiaz, out of disgust with President Pervez Musharraf's government. The prize had been awarded to the poet in 2004 for his literary achievements. "My conscience will not forgive me if I remained a silent spectator of the sad happenings around us", he said. "The least I can do is to let the dictatorship know where it stands in the eyes of the concerned citizens, whose fundamental rights have been usurped."
Works published in English
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Australia
See also 2006 in Australian literature
Robert Adamson The Goldfinches of Baghdad
Ken Babstock, Airstream Land Yacht (Black Inc.),
Laurie Duggan, The Passenger, winner of the 2007 Arts Queensland Judith Wright Calanthe Award; St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press
Stephen Edgar, Other Summers, 108 pp; named a "Book of the Year" by The Age; Melbourne: Black Pepper,
Robert Gray, Nameless Earth
Jennifer Harrison: Folly & Grief (Black Pepper)
Dennis Haskell, All the Time in the World
Judy Johnson, Jack
S. K. Kelen, Earthly Delights
Chris Mansell, Love poems (Kardoorair, Armidale)
Graeme Miles, Phosphorescence
Les Murray, The Biplane Houses
Dorothy Porter, The Best Australian Poems 2006 (Black, Inc.),
Mark Reid, A Difficult Faith
Thomas Shapcott, The City of Empty Rooms
Craig Sherborne, Necessary Evil, Black Inc.,
John Tranter, Urban Myths: 210 Poems
rob walker, "micromacro"
Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Then
Simon West, First Names
Fay Zwicky, Picnic
Canada
Margaret Avison, Momentary Dark
Elizabeth Bachinsky, Home of Sudden Service
Ven Begamudré, The Lightness Which Is Our World, Seen from Afar
Earle Birney, One Muddy Hand: Selected Poems, Sam Solecki ed. Posthumous.
Dionne Brand, Inventory
George Elliott Clarke, Black, Vancouver: Polestar,
Wayne Clifford, The Book of Were
Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing
Jon Paul Fiorentino, The Theory of the Loser Class (Coach House Books)
Maxine Gadd, Backup to Babylon
Matthew Holmes, Hitch, a first volume
Anita Lahey, Out to Dry in Cape Breton
Elizabeth Mayne, A Passionate Continuity
Don McKay:
Strike/Slip winner of the 2007 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize
Field Marks: The Poetry of Don McKay edited by Méira Cook
Garry Thomas Morse, Transversals for Orpheus
Michael Ondaatje, The Story, Toronto: House of Anansi,
P. K. Page, Hand Luggage: A Memoir in Verse
Sina Queyras, Lemon Hound (Coach House Books)
Angela Rawlings, Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists (Coach House Books)
Raymond Souster:
Down to Earth Battered Silicon Dispatch Box.
Wondrous Wobbly World: Poems for the New Millennium.
Uptown Downtown Battered Silicon Dispatch Box.
Nathalie Stephens, Touch to Affliction (Coach House Books)
Sharon Thesen, The Good Bacteria
India, in English
Keki Daruwalla, Collected poems, 1970–2005 ( Poetry in English ), New Delhi and New York City : Penguin Books
Anjum Hasan, Street on the Hill ( Poetry in English ), New Delhi : Sahitya Akademi.
Meena Kandasamy, Touch ( Poetry in English ), Mumbai : Peacock Books
Suniti Namjoshi, Sycorax: New Fables and Poems ( Poetry in English ), Penguin India, New Delhi, 2006.
Robin Ngangom, The Desire of Roots( Poetry in English ), Cuttack : Chandrabhaga
E.V. Ramakrishnan, Terms of Seeing: New and Selected Poems, ( Poetry in English ), New Delhi: Konark Publishers, ,
Udaya Narayana Singh, Second Person Singular, translated from the original Maithili of the author's Madhyampurush Ekvachan by the author and Rizio Yohanan Raj; New Delhi : Katha
Ireland
Vona Groarke, Juniper Street, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, Ireland
Seamus Heaney, District and Circle, Faber & Faber; Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
Maurice Riordan and Colm Breathnach, editors, Best of Irish Poetry 2007 selections from 50 Irish poets, including Eavan Boland, Seamus Heaney, Thomas McCarthy, Paul Muldoon, Paul Durcan, Eamon Grennan, Vona Groarke, Thomas Kinsella, Michael Longley, Dorothy Molloy, Gerry Murphy, Katie Donovan, Matthew Sweeney, Derek Mahon, Gabriel Rosenstock, Louis De Paor, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (Southward Editions) (anthology) Ireland (published November 2006)
Justin Quinn, Waves and Trees, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press
New Zealand
Airini Beautrais Secret Heart, Victoria University Press
Glenn Colquhoun, Playing God
Janet Frame, The Goose Bath, posthumous
Bill Manhire, Lifted
Cilla McQueen, A Wind Harp (compact disc)
Alison Wong, Cup, Publisher: Steele Roberts
Poets in Best New Zealand Poems
Poems from these 25 poets were selected by John Newton for Best New Zealand Poems 2015, published online this year:
Michele Amas
Angela Andrews
Stu Bagby
Jenny Bornholdt
James Brown
Janet Charman
Geoff Cochrane
Mary Cresswell
Wystan Curnow
Stephanie de Montalk
Fiona Farrell
Bernadette Hall
Anne Kennedy
Michele Leggott
Anna Livesey
Karlo Mila
James Norcliffe
Gregory O'Brien
Vivienne Plumb
Anna Smaill
Elizabeth Smither
Robert Sullivan
Brian Turner
Ian Wedde
Sonja Yelich
United Kingdom
Carol Ann Duffy and Jane Ray, The Lost Happy Endings, Penguin
James Fenton:
Selected Poems (2006) Penguin
Editor, The New Faber Book of Love Poems (anthology)
John Haynes (poet), Letter to Patience, a book-length poem in iambic pentameter, in the form of a letter from a Nigerian father in Britain to his friend back in Nigeria; winner of the Costa Book Award
Seamus Heaney, District and Circle, Faber & Faber; Irish poet published in the United Kingdom
Allison Hedge Coke – Blood Run, Salt Publications
Geoffrey Hill: Without Title
Derek Mahon, Adaptations (A collection of versions, rather than translations proper, from poets such as Pasolini, Juvenal, Bertolt Brecht, Valery, Baudelaire, Rilke, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.) Gallery Press
Roger Moulson, Waiting for the Night-Rowers, Enitharmon Press, winner of the 2006 Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize
Sean O'Brien, Inferno: a verse version of Dante's Inferno (Picador)
Robin Robertson, Swithering, winner of the 2006 Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize
Claire Tomalin, Thomas Hardy, Penguin Press, one of The New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year" for 2007 (biography)
Hugo Williams, Dear Room, (Faber and Faber)
Poets included in New Writing 14
This book of British writing (Granta, ), edited by Lavinia Greenlaw and Helon Habila, contains short stories, essays and excerpts of novels in addition to poems by these poets:
Carrie Etter
Iain Galbraith
Chenjerai Hove
Stephen Knight
Frances Leviston
Carola Luther
Jamie McKendrick
David Morley
Paul Muldoon
Blessing Musariri
Sean O'Brien
Don Paterson
Paul Perry
Greta Stoddart
Eoghan Walls
United States
A. R. Ammons, Selected Poems, American Poets Project of the Library of America; distributed by Penguin Putnam, posthumous
Renée Ashley, The Museum of Lost Wings
Bruce Beasley, The Corpse Flower: New and Selected Poems, University of Washington Press,
Robin Becker, Domain of Perfect Affection, Pittsburgh University Press
Elizabeth Bishop, Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments, Alice Quinn, editor (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), posthumous
Charles Bukowski, Come On In!: New Poems (Ecco)
Hayden Carruth, Toward the Distant Islands: New and Selected Poems, Copper Canyon Press, edited by Sam Hamill
Jared Carter, Cross this Bridge at a Walk, Wind Publications.
Carson Cistulli Some Common Weaknesses Illustrated, Casagrande Press.
Hart Crane, Hart Crane: Complete Poems and Selected Letters, edited by Langdon Hammer, Library of America (posthumous)
Robert Creeley, On Earth: Last Poems and an Essay (University of California Press)
Dick Davis, Trick of Sunlight, Swallow Press
Michael Dumanis and Cate Marvin, Editors, Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century (Sarabande Books)
Daisy Fried, My Brother Is Getting Arrested Again (University of Pittsburgh Press), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry
Jack Gilbert, Tough Heaven: Poems of Pittsburgh, Transgressions: Selected Poems
Allen Ginsberg, Collected Poems, 1947–1997 (posthumous), one of the New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year", an expanded edition of the 1984 Collected Poems, 1947–1980
Jesse Glass, The Passion of Phineas Gage and Selected Poems (West House/Ahadada)
Eugene Gloria, Hoodlum Birds, Penguin
Louise Glück, Averno (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), one of the New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year"
Linda Gregg, In the Middle Distance, Graywolf
Donald Hall, White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946–2006 (Houghton Mifflin)
Suheir Hammad, ZataarDiva, book and CD (Cypher/Rattapallax)
Jim Harrison, Saving Daylight (Copper Canyon Press)
Seamus Heaney, District and Circle, Farrar Straus & Giroux
Allison Hedge Coke – Blood Run, US edition
George Heym, Poems (Northwestern University Press, translated from German by Antony Hasler
Jeffrey Harrison, Incomplete Knowledge, Four Way Books
Jane Hirshfield, After: Poems, (HarperCollins), named as one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post
Paul Hoover, Edge and Fold (Apogee Press)
Frieda Hughes, Forty-Five (HarperCollins)
Troy Jollimore, Tom Thomson in Purgatory (MARGIE/Intuit House), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry
Patricia Spears Jones, Femme du Monde: Poems, (Tia Chucha Press)
Mary Karr, Sinners Welcome: Poems (HarperCollins)
Ariana-Sophia M. Kartsonis, Intaglio, Kent State
Galway Kinnell, Strong Is Your Hold (Houghton Mifflin Books), the poet's first collection of new poems in more than a decade, one of the New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year"
Thomas Kinsella, Collected Poems: 1956–2001, Wake Forest
Kei Miller, Kingdom of Empty Bellies, Jamaican poet published in the United States:
Hannah Nijinsky and John Most, Persephone (AQP Collective)
Alice Notley, Grave of Light: New and Selected Poems 1970–2005 (Wesleyan University Press)
Mary Oliver, Thirst (Beacon Press)
Carl Phillips, Riding Westward, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
George Quasha, Axial Stones: An Art of Precarious Balance, foreword Carter Ratcliff (North Atlantic Books, Berkeley) [sculpture & poetry/preverbs]
Ishmael Reed, New and Collected Poems, 1964–2006, one of the New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year"
Lisa Robertson, The Men: A Lyric Book (BookThug)
Theodore Roethke, Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke, compiled by David Wagoner from "277 spiral notebooks of poetry fragments, aphorisms, jokes, memos, journal entries, random phrases, bits of dialog, commentary, and fugitive miscellany", Copper Canyon Press, (posthumous)
Miltos Sachtouris, Poems (1945–1971), bilingual edition, Greek with English translation by Karen Emmerich (Archipelago Books), finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry
Frederick Seidel, Ooga-Booga, (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry
Julie Sheehan, Orient Point: Poems, (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Patricia Smith, Teahouse of the Almighty: Poems, selected by Ed Sanders (Coffee House Press, 2006)
W.D. Snodgrass, Not For Specialists, New and Selected Poems, (BOA Editions, Ltd.), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry
Mark Strand, Man and Camel (Alfred A. Knopf) by a Canadian native long living in and published in the United States
Rosmarie Waldrop, Splitting Image (Zasterle), Curves to the Apple (New Directions)
Alicia E. Vasquez, 1719 Union St. (Wasteland Press)
Eliot Weinberger, Muhammed, (Verso, W.W. Norton & Co.)
Dara Wier, Remnants of Hannah, Wave Books
C.K. Williams, Collected Poems
George Witte, The Apparitioners, Three Rail Press
Charles Wright, Scar Tissue, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Franz Wright, God's Silence (Alfred A. Knopf)
Robert Wrigley, Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems, Penguin
Louis Zukofsky, Selected Poems, American Poets Project of the Library of America, distributed by Penguin Putnam; posthumous
Jesse Lee Kercheval, Film History As Train Wreck
Anthologies in the United States
Harold Bloom and Jesse Zuba, editors, American Religious Poems: An Anthology, Library of America
Michael Hofmann, editor, Twentieth-Century German Poetry: An Anthology (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Joy Katz and Kevin Prufer, editors, Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems, 76 poems, each selected by a poet who was asked to provide an "unknown or underappreciated poem written by anyone, in any language, from any era", along with a brief essay by the selecting poet about the poem each chose; Illinois University Press
Jeb Livingood, series editor; Eric Pankey, editor, Best New Poets 2006: 50 Poems from Emerging Writers, Samovar
Poets included in The Best American Poetry 2006
Poets included in The Best American Poetry 2006, edited by David Lehman, co-edited this year by Billy Collins:
Kim Addonizio
Dick Allen
Craig Arnold
John Ashbery
Jesse Ball
Krista Benjamin
Ilya Bernstein
Gaylord Brewer
Tom Christopher
Laura Cronk
Carl Dennis
Stephen Dobyns
Denise Duhamel
Stephen Dunn
Beth Ann Fennelly
Megan Gannon
Amy Gerstler
Sarah Gorham
George Green
Debora Greger
Eamon Grennan
Daniel Gutstein
R. S. Gwynn
Rachel Hadas
Mark Halliday
Jim Harrison
Robert Hass
Christian Hawkey
Terrance Hayes
Bob Hicok
Katia Kapovich
Laura Kasischke
Joy Katz
David Kirby
Jennifer L. Knox
Ron Koertge
John Koethe
Mark Kraushaar
Julie Larios
Dorianne Laux
Reb Livingston
Thomas Lux
Paul Muldoon
Marilyn Nelson
Richard Newman
Mary Oliver
Danielle Pafunda
Mark Pawlak
Bao Phi
Donald Platt
Lawrence Raab
Betsy Retallack
Liz Rosenberg
J. Allyn Rosser
Kay Ryan
Mary Jo Salter
Vejay Sheshadri
Alan Shapiro
Charles Simic
Gerald Stern
James Tate
Sue Ellen Thompson
Tony Towle
Alison Townsend
Paul Violi
Ellen Bryant Voigt
David Wagoner
Charles Harper Webb
C. K. Williams
Terence Winch
Susan Wood
Franz Wright
Robert Wrigley
David Yezzi
Dean Young
Criticism, scholarship and biography in the United States
Jason Shinder, editor, “The Poem That Changed America: 'Howl' Fifty Years Later, essays on Allen Ginsberg's poem, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Other
Chandrashekhar Bhattacharya, Tomake Ebong Tomake: Poems (Manaswini Publication), Bangladesh
Claude Esteban, Le Jour à peine écrit (1967–1992), Gallimard, France
Mohit Kailashnath Misra, "Ponder Awhile" (Booksurge Publishers)
Works published in other languages
Listed by nation where the work was first published and again by the poet's native land, if different; substantially revised works listed separately:
Czech Republic
Michal Ajvaz, Padesát pět měst ("Fifty-five cities")
Petr Král, Hm čili Míra omylu, 2006
Michal Šanda, Kecanice ("Chew The Rag"), Prague: Protis,
Marie Šťastná, Akty ("Nudes"), Czech Republic
Ivan Wernisch, Michal Šanda and Milan Ohnisko, Býkárna, Druhé město Brno,
French language
Canada
Claude Beausoliel, Regarde, tu vois, Le Castor Astral
France
Léopold Sédar Senghor, Œuvre poétique, éd. Le Seuil – Points.
Jacques Roubaud, Cœurs, La Bibliothèque oulipienne n°155
Jean Max Tixier, Les silences du passeur, publisher: Le Taillis pré
Linda Maria Baros, La Maison en lames de rasoir (The House Made of Razor Blades), Cheyne éditeur
Germany
Christoph Buchwald, general editor, and Norbert Hummelt, guest editor, Jahrbuch der Lyrik 2007 ("Poetry Yearbook 2007"), publisher: S. Fischer Verlag; anthology
Hendrik Jackson. Dunkelströme ("Dark Current") Kookbooks, 72 pages,
Christoph Janacs, Unverwandt den Schatten ("Intently the Shadow"); St. Georgs Presse
Christoph Ransmayr, Der fliegende Berg, a novel-poem Austria
Monika Rinck, Ah, das Love-Ding ("Ah, the Love-Ding"), illustrated by Andreas Topfer, Kookbooks, 160 pages,
India
Listed in alphabetical order by first name:
Amarjit Chandan, Annjall, Lokgeet, Chandigarh; Punjabi
Bharat Majhi; Oriya:
Murtikar Bhubaneswar: Pen In, Bhubaneswar
Mahanagara Padya, Bhubaneswar: Pratchi Prakasani
Jayanta Mahapatra, Samparka, Natuna Dilli: Sāhitya Akādemi; Bengali-language
K. Satchidanandan, Malayalam:
Satchidanandte Kavithakal, selected poems, 1965–2005
Anantam ("Infinite")
Onnaam Padham ("The First Lesson")
K. Siva Reddy, Mithi Ka Pukar, translated into Hindi from the original Telugu by Narasa Reddy), Hyderabad: Milind Prakashan
Kanaka Ha Ma, Arabi Kadalu, Sagara, Karnataka: Akshara Prakashana; Kannada
Namdeo Dhasal, Tujhe Bot Dharoon Chalalo Ahe Mee; Marathi
Nirendranath Chakravarti, Jyotsnaye Ekela, Kolkata: Ananda Publishers; Bengali
Prem ke Roopak, New Delhi: Vani Prakashan, , anthology, Hindi-language
Poland
Marcin Baran,
Stanisław Barańczak, Wiersze zebrane, Krakow: a5
Wojciech Bonowicz, Pełne morze
Ewa Lipska, Drzazga, Krakow: Wydawnictwo literackie
Czesław Miłosz, Wiersze ostatnie ("The Last Poems"), Kraków: Znak
Marta Podgórnik, Dwa do jeden
Tomasz Różycki, Kolonie ("Colonies"), 77 poems, 86 pp, Kraków: Znak,
Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz, Do widzenia gawrony ("Good-bye, Rooks"), Warsaw: Sic!
Marcin Świetlicki, Muzyka środka
Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, Poezja jako miejsce na ziemi. (1988–2003)
Jan Twardowski, Kilka myśli o cierpieniu, przemijaniu i odejściu Poznan: Księgarnia Św. Wojciecha
Russia
Yelena Fanaylova, Russkaya versiya ("The Russian Version")
Lev Losev, , biography of Joseph Brodsky, a friend of the author, Russia
Alexander Mezhirov, Артиллерия бьёт по своим, Moscow: publisher: Zebra E
Aleksey Tsvetkov, Shekspir otdykhaet ("Shakespeare at Rest")
Dmitry Vodennikov, Chernovik ("Rough Draft")
Igor Vishnevetsky, На запад солнца ("West of the Sun")
Ivan Zhdanov, a book of selected works
Other languages
Klaus Høeck, Heartland, publisher: Gyldendal; Denmark Denmark
Duo Yo, Duo Yu shixuan ("Poems by Duo Yu"), China
Awards and honors
International
Nobel Prize in Literature: Orhan Pamuk, Turkey
Golden Wreath of Poetry: Nancy Morejón (Cuba)
Australia
C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry:
Dinny O'Hearn Poetry Prize: Friendly Fire by Jennifer Maiden
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry:
Canada
Archibald Lampman Award: Laura Farina, This Woman Alphabetical
Atlantic Poetry Prize: Anne Compton, Processional
Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate: John Steffler (until December 3, 2008)
Governor General's Literary Awards: John Pass, Stumbling in the Bloom (English); Hélène Dorion, Ravir: les lieux (French)
Gerald Lampert Award: Suzanne Buffam, Past Imperfect
Griffin Poetry Prize (Canada): Sylvia Legris, Nerve Squall
Griffin Poetry Prize (International, in the English Language): Kamau Brathwaite, Born to Slow Horses
Pat Lowther Award: Sylvia Legris, Nerve Squall
Prix Alain-Grandbois: Fernand Ouellette, L'Inoubliable
Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize: Meredith Quartermain, Vancouver Walking
Prix Émile-Nelligan: Maude Smith Gagnon, Une tonne d'air
New Zealand
Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement:
Montana New Zealand Book Awards
Poetry: Bill Manhire, Lifted, Victoria University Press
NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry: Karlo Mila, Dream Fish Floating. Huia Publishers
United Kingdom
Forward Poetry Prize Best Collection: Robin Robertson for Swithering.
Forward Poetry Prize Best First Collection: Tishani Doshi, for Countries of the Body.
Forward Poetry Prize Best Single Poem: Sean O'Brien, for "Fantasia on a Theme of James Wright".
T. S. Eliot Prize (United Kingdom and Ireland): Seamus Heaney, for District and Circle
Costa Book Awards (formerly Whitbread Award) for poetry: John Haynes for Letter to Patience
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Fleur Adcock
United States
Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize awarded to Nancy Krygowski for Velocity
American Academy of Arts and Letters: poets Paul Auster and Frank Bidart elected to the Literature Department
Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize awarded to Gabriel Gomez for The Outer Bands
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress: Donald Hall appointed
Poet Laureate of Virginia: Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, two year appointment 2006 to 2008
Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition Awards: Moira Linehan, If No Moon
James Laughlin Award for poetry: Tracy K. Smith
National Book Award for poetry: Nathaniel Mackey, Splay Anthem, New Directions
Finalists: Louise Glück, Averno, Farrar, Straus & Giroux; H.L. Hix, Chromatic, Etruscan Press; Ben Lerner, Angle of Yaw, Copper Canyon Press; James McMichael, Capacity, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
National Poetry Review Book Prize: Bryan Penberthy, Lucktown.
Poets' Prize: Catherine Tufariello, Keeping My Name
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (United States): Claudia Emerson, Late Wife; and Poet Laureate of Virginia 2008 to 2010
Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award: John Hollander
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize: Richard Wilbur
Whiting Awards: Sherwin Bitsui, Tyehimba Jess, Suji Kwock Kim
Wallace Stevens Award: Michael Palmer
Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition: Jessica Fisher, Frail-Craft; Judge: Louise Glück
Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Carl Phillips
From the Poetry Society of America
Frost Medal: Maxine Kumin
Shelley Memorial Award: George Stanley (poet), Judges: Sonia Sanchez, Joshua Clover
Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award: Nicole Cooley, "The Anatomical Museum", Judge: Gerald Stern
Cecil Hemley Memorial Award: Rusty Morrison, "Sky Clutches Any Strong Beat", Judge: Cal Bedient
Lanan Literary Award for Poetry: Bruce Weigl
Lyric Poetry Award: Alice Jones, "Valle D'Aosta", Judge: Toi Derricotte
Lucille Medwick Memorial Award: Lynne Knight, "Recovery", Judge: Grace Schulman
Finalists: Amy Dryansky, Somewhere Honey from Those Bees; J.C. Todd, What's Left;
Finalists: John Isles, The Arcadia Negotiations; Wayne Miller, The Book of Props; Emily Rosko, Weather Inventions; Judge: Forrest Gander
Louise Louis/Emily F. Bourne Student Poetry Award: Katherine Browning, "to discover the cartography of blankness", Judge: Prageeta Sharma
George Bogin Memorial Award: Kevin Prufer
Finalists: Susan Briante, Jill McDonough, Judge: Marie Howe
Robert H. Winner Memorial Award: Daneen Wardrop, Archicembalo, Judge: Jean Valentine
Norma Farber First Book Award: Cammy Thomas, Cathedral of Wish, Judge: Medbh McGuckian
William Carlos Williams Award: Brenda Hillman, Pieces of Air in the Epic, Judge: Marjorie Welish
Finalists: Ethan Paquin, The Violence (Ahsahta Press); Aaron Shurin, Involuntary Lyrics (Omnidawn Press)
From the Poetry Society of Virginia Student Poetry Contest
Other awards and honors
Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (German Academy for Language and Literature) Georg Büchner Prize: Oskar Pastior
Cervantes Prize (Spanish-language): Antonio Gamoneda (Spain)
Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
See also
Poetry
List of poetry awards
References
RPO – A Time-Line of Poetry in English "A Timeline of English Poetry" Web page of the Representative Poetry Online Web site, University of Toronto
2000s in poetry
Poetry
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Major League Baseball on TBS (also sometimes referred to as Sunday MLB on TBS during the regular season) is a presentation of regular season and postseason Major League Baseball game telecasts that air on the American pay television network TBS. The games are produced by Turner Sports.
History
Pre-2007: relationship with the Braves
Atlanta Braves baseball games had been a local staple on Atlanta independent station WTBS (channel 17, now WPCH-TV; which, like TBS, was owned by Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System) since Turner acquired the team's broadcast rights in 1973, and subsequently gained national prominence when the station was uplinked to satellite in December 1976, becoming one of America's first superstations. Along with Chicago-based WGN-TV and New York-based WWOR-TV, WTBS was one of the few television stations that broadcast local sporting events to a national audience, with some even giving the Braves the title "America's Team".
1983 marked the last time that local telecasts of League Championship Series games were allowed. In 1982, Major League Baseball recognized a problem with this due to the emergence of cable superstations such as WTBS in Atlanta and WGN-TV in Chicago. When TBS tried to petition for the right to do a "local" Braves broadcast of the 1982 NLCS, Major League Baseball got a Philadelphia federal court to ban them on the grounds that as a cable superstation, TBS couldn't have a nationwide telecast competing with ABC's.
On July 11, 1988, the day before the Major League Baseball All-Star Game from Cincinnati, TBS televised the annual All-Star Gala from the Cincinnati Zoo. Larry King hosted the broadcast with Craig Sager and Pete Van Wieren handling interviews. The broadcast's big draw would've been the Home Run Derby, which TBS intended on taping during the afternoon, and later airing it in prime time during the Gala coverage. The Gala coverage also had some canned features such as highlights from previous All-Star Games, a segment on Cincinnati's baseball history, a video recap of the season's first half and, a slow-motion highlight montage set to "This Is the Time" by Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung. Unfortunately, the derby and a skills competition were canceled due to rain. As a result, TBS scrambled to try to fill nearly an hour of now-open airtime. For example, the Gatlin Brothers, the event's musical guests, who had already played a full concert, were asked to come back out and play some more.
Sister network TNT was actually in the running to gain the cable portion of the baseball TV rights beginning in 1990. However, ESPN won the final bid with the league.
When Major League Baseball was realigned into three divisions each within the American and National Leagues in 1994, TBS offered Major League Baseball US$40-$45 million a year for rights to another round of postseason games (presumably, matches from the newly created Division Series). Instead, Major League Baseball along with ABC and NBC formed a revenue sharing joint venture called The Baseball Network (which was dissolved after the 1995 season). Meanwhile, CBS was offering $130 million a year to renew its previous contract (a four-year agreement that began in 1990 and ran until 1993) before being shut out, as well.
During NBC's coverage of the 2000 Division Series between the New York Yankees and Oakland Athletics, regular play-by-play announcer Bob Costas decided to take a breather after anchoring NBC's prime time coverage of the Summer Olympic Games from Sydney. In Costas' place was Atlanta Braves announcer Skip Caray, who teamed with Joe Morgan before Costas' return for the ALCS. It wasn't just Costas but all of NBC's production crews who were down in Sydney. The Olympics ended just two or three days before the MLB playoffs started that year, so the TBS crew worked the Division Series games for NBC.
In 2003, the Braves telecasts on TBS underwent significant changes for the first time in many years, reflecting an increase in the network's rights fee payments to Major League Baseball. In turn, national sponsors could fulfill their advertising commitments by purchasing ads on TBS, in addition to ESPN or Fox. In the process, Don Sutton and Joe Simpson assumed duties as lead commentators, while longtime play-by-play announcers Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren had their participation on the broadcasts reduced. This was done in an attempt to combat criticism of Caray's on-air "home team" bias and to market its baseball coverage to fans of MLB teams other than the Braves. Meanwhile, the brand Braves Baseball on TBS was replaced by Major League Baseball on TBS. The move was strongly criticized by Braves fans, Atlanta area media outlets and Braves manager Bobby Cox. Over 90% of Braves fans who voted in an online poll conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution preferred Caray and Van Wieren to the more neutral broadcasts. The move backfired, and ratings for the TBS broadcasts declined sharply. After that year's All-Star break, TBS brought back Caray and Van Wieren to work with the two analysts, while broadcasts reverted to the Braves Baseball on TBS brand the following year.
2007–2013: Going national
On October 17, 2006, TBS signed an agreement with Major League Baseball which earned the network exclusive rights to all Division Series playoff games, one of the League Championship Series, as well as rights to the All-Star Selection Show held in late June or early July, from 2007 to 2013. A national Sunday afternoon baseball package was also planned starting with the 2008 season. As a part of the deal, the Turner Broadcasting System management decided to limit Braves games to local telecasts within the Atlanta market. On October 1, 2007, the Turner Broadcasting System severed the ties between WTBS and the TBS cable channel, converting the Atlanta station into an in-market independent station that assumed the call letters WPCH-TV, branding on-air as "Peachtree TV".
Along with this, Comcast and other cable providers within the Atlanta market began carrying the national TBS feed for the first time. WPCH-TV continued to air Braves games, but they were only broadcast within the team's designated market area and throughout Canada; in the latter case, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission never allowed the TBS cable feed to be eligible for carriage on Canadian cable and satellite providers as a superstation, only giving permission for the Atlanta area signal (whose programming largely overlapped with the national version of the channel outside of public affairs and E/I-compliant programming seen only on WTBS). WPCH would lose television rights to the Braves after 40 years in 2013, when Fox Sports South – which took over production responsibilities for the games from Turner Sports after the Meredith Corporation, owner of Atlanta's CBS affiliate WGCL-TV (channel 46), assumed WPCH's operations through a local marketing agreement formed in 2011 – acquired the regional television rights to the station's 45-game package beginning with the 2014 season. Although the channel is not available in the country, TBS's game broadcasts are carried in Canada on Sportsnet. All games include a Spanish language play-by-play feed that is transmitted via the SAP audio channel.
Since TBS assumed rights to the regular season package, several contests that have aired on the network have featured the Braves. On October 7, 2010, TBS carried its first Braves postseason game since the package began: Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the San Francisco Giants (a 1–0 win for the Giants).
On the July 2, 2011 edition of the CBS Sports Spectacular, TBS's Atlanta-based Major League Baseball studio crew of Matt Winer, Dennis Eckersley, Cal Ripken, and David Wells presented a 2011 Major League Baseball midseason report. This was followed by MLB 2011: Down the Stretch, which aired on September 24. CBS Sports and Turner Sports have in the past, partnered together to provide coverage of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament and the Winter Olympics in 1992, 1994 and 1998. On August 29, 2012, The New York Times reported that CBS and TBS may strike a potential alliance for a Major League Baseball television contract effective with the 2014 season. According to the report, CBS "would most likely want only the All-Star Game and World Series", an arrangement almost similar to the one NBC had with Major League Baseball from 1996 to 2000.
For the 2012 and 2013 seasons, TBS was awarded the rights to televise both Wild Card Playoff games that occur the day before the Division Series games. In exchange, MLB Network was awarded the rights to televise two Division Series games, rights that previously belonged to TBS. TBS retained the right to air any tie-breaker games to determine the team that moves onto a Wild Card Playoff game which are considered part of the regular season; this occurred in 2013 with a match between the Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers.
Renewals
On October 2, 2012, Turner Sports renewed its contract with Major League Baseball, originally expected to expire in 2014, through the 2021 season. A major change is that the postseason would now be split between TBS and Fox networks; TBS carries most of the Division Series and Championship Series games for one of the leagues per-season (the American League in even numbered years and the National League in odd numbered years), with the opposite league's games conversely carried by Fox (primarily Fox Sports 1, but with occasional games on the broadcast network), and selected games in both carried by MLB Network. The World Series remains exclusive to Fox, while rights to the wild card games remain split between TBS and ESPN. TBS would retain a non-exclusive late-season package of 13 regular season games on Sunday afternoons, down from 26 under the previous contract, and now co-existing with local broadcasts. The contract is valued at $2.8 billion over eight seasons.
On September 24, 2020, it was announced that WarnerMedia had renewed its rights through 2028 (aligned with the conclusion of Fox's most recent extension). A major change in the contract is the replacement of TBS's late-season Sunday games with a new primetime game on Tuesday nights, beginning April 5, 2022. Most of the existing postseason broadcasting arrangements remain in place, with TBS holding rights to one wild card game, and two Division Series and the Championship Series for one league annually. WarnerMedia is also receiving additional digital rights for Bleacher Report and "additional WarnerMedia platforms". The value of the contract was reported to have increased to $535 million per-season.
Viewers and ratings
Scheduling
TBS typically begins game coverage with the pregame show MLB on Deck, followed 37 or 38 minutes later by the first pitch of the first game. Each day's coverage ends with Inside MLB (which is formatted similarly to sister network TNT's Inside the NBA). TBS does not show commercial breaks after the third and sixth innings (and also after the ninth inning, if the game goes into extra innings). Instead, it airs a "Game Break", which gives the studio host and analysts more airtime (similar to what is done for British television coverage of an American sporting event). The studio shows originate from Studio J at Turner Sports's headquarters in Atlanta, which is also used for TNT's NBA coverage.
Regular season
During the regular season, TBS broadcasts a weekly game nationally on Sunday afternoons, under the title Sunday MLB on TBS. These games are not exclusive to TBS and are blacked out in local markets, to protect the stations that hold the local broadcast rights to the games. In the affected areas, simulcasts of programming from sister network HLN air in place of the games. Under the deal, TBS can show an alternate game in those markets, but the network has elected not to do so thus far.
Despite initial reports that TBS would carry games on Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day, these holiday games are not part of the contract. For many years, games on these holidays were shown on ESPN, but that network has discontinued them, with the occasional exception of when they fall into the regular Sunday/Monday/Wednesday night slots.
TBS released a partial schedule of its inaugural slate of Sunday games on February 27, 2008. More games would be added as the season progressed, generally two weeks before each telecast date. TBS has the second pick of game after ESPN.
Consequently, due to its non-exclusivity, highlights of a scheduled game that aired on MLB on TBS are not shown on the ESPN baseball highlight show Baseball Tonight, nor are live simulcasts and highlights of the said game on the MLB.TV subscription service; instead local broadcasts of the scheduled game are shown. However, highlights of an MLB on TBS game did air on the MLB on Fox weekly program This Week in Baseball (until it was canceled in 2011), as well as MLB Tonight on the MLB Network.
Starting with the 2022 season, TBS' weekly games were moved to Tuesday nights.
Postseason
Before the postseason, TBS aired any tie-breaker games (until 2014, when all tiebreaker games were moved to ESPN) for divisional and one of the two wild card games. Should multiple tie-breaking games be played, or if multiple Division Series games are going on at the same time, those additional games air on TBS' sister network, TNT. However, games between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox are subject to be moved to Fox.
From 2007 to 2010, when TBS aired every Division Series game, start times were staggered throughout the day from early afternoon to late primetime. The first game was usually scheduled to start at 1:07 and the last game was usually scheduled for 9:07. If a game ran long (that is the game goes to extra innings), the start of the next game would be shifted to TNT (the game would move back to TBS during the first commercial break after the end of the earlier game, with an announcement from the in-studio crew to switch to TBS). For the LCS round, TBS would show all of the games at a start time pre-set by MLB. All coverage was followed by Inside MLB. This schedule was brought back for 2013 only, except that MLB Network aired the two games scheduled for the early afternoon slot.
In 2007, TBS switched the starts of four games to TNT in the Division Series round because the previous games exceeded the time limit. TNT was also scheduled to air Game 4 of the Diamondbacks-Cubs series, which overlapped with Game 3 of the Red Sox-Angels series, but the former game was not played; the night before, the D-Backs completed a three-game sweep of the Cubs.
With TBS only holding the rights to half of the postseason beginning in 2014, the network aired games at start times that did not conflict with Fox, ESPN, or MLB Network's coverage of the postseason, and airs Inside MLB following the conclusion of its own coverage instead of at the conclusion of all games on a given day.
Beginning in 2016, the usually all-news network CNN en Español carries TBS's postseason coverage with the Spanish audio, though no language adjustments are made to the on-screen graphics. The Spanish audio is also available through TBS's second audio program, and the coverage on CNN en Español is subject to pre-emption for appropriate breaking news coverage.
For the 2016 American League Championship Series between the Cleveland Indians and Toronto Blue Jays, Sportsnet, a property of Blue Jays owner Rogers Communications, aired all games in Canada using the TBS feeds.
The 2020 regular season was delayed by four months due to the coronavirus pandemic. That July, Major League Baseball announced that they would be expanding the playoffs, with ESPN and TBS gaining the extra games. The 2020 postseason would now have 16 teams and begin with eight best-of-three Wild Card Series preceding the Division Series. All of the new playoff games would be exclusively televised by ESPN and TBS, with ESPN holding exclusive rights to seven of the eight series.
TNT's involvement
TNT is TBS's outlet to air the beginning of LDS games in case of an overrun on TBS. When the TBS game finishes, the TNT game is switched back to TBS.
However, in 2011 and 2012, TNT aired its own slate of postseason Division Series games, due to MLB's desire to air fewer LDS games in the early afternoon. This was the first time TNT had ever aired regularly scheduled MLB games. However, it used TBS's announcers and production crews with the only difference being the TNT logo in the scorebox replacing the usual TBS logo.
In 2011, TNT aired Rays–Rangers Game 1, Tigers–Yankees Games 1 and 2, and Brewers–Diamondbacks Game 3. To clarify, on October 1, 2011, TNT aired Game 2 of the Tampa Bay Rays vs. the Texas Rangers at 7 p.m. ET, which overlapped with the end of Game 1 of the St. Louis Cardinals vs. the Philadelphia Phillies and the continuation of Game 1 of the Detroit Tigers vs. the New York Yankees on TBS. (The latter was also to have been Game 2, but Game 1 was suspended after innings due to rain.) On October 2, it aired the rescheduled Game 2 between the Tigers and the Yankees at 3 p.m. ET, two hours before Game 2 of the Arizona Diamondbacks vs. the Milwaukee Brewers on TBS. On October 4, it aired Game 3 of the Diamondbacks vs. the Brewers at 9:30 p.m. ET, one hour after Game 3 of the Tigers vs. the Yankees started on TBS.
In 2012, TNT aired Reds–Giants Game 1, and A's–Tigers Games 4 and 5.
Announcers
On January 28, 2007, TBS's executive producer Jeff Behnke said that Chip Caray "is definitely going to be TBS' lead play-by-play announcer for division series and LCS games." Indeed, TBS announced in April 2007 that Baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, who has experience in broadcasting with ESPN and the San Diego Padres, would join Caray in the booth. Veteran Braves play-by-play man Skip Caray, Chip's father was vocal about not being part of the coverage in comments he made to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
TBS' studio team was Inside the NBA host Ernie Johnson along with the other member of the 2007 Baseball Hall of Fame class, Cal Ripken Jr. On September 24, it was announced that the studio show would also include Frank Thomas, who played for the Toronto Blue Jays during the season. Thomas and other active players such as Curtis Granderson and John Smoltz made guest appearances during the playoffs. The studio coverage is titled Inside MLB. As previously mentioned, in 2007, Don Orsillo and Joe Simpson called the one game playoff between the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres to decide the National League wild card.
In the 2008 season, Chip Caray, Ron Darling, and Buck Martinez formed the lead broadcast crew for Sunday games on TBS. Darling and Martinez have taken turns as analysts. Marc Fein, who was the last TBS Braves Baseball studio host, had the same duties here, providing updates throughout the day from other MLB games. Johnson also hosted from time-to-time.
TBS disclosed its initial roster of postseason announcers on September 18, 2008. In 2008, Dick Stockton called the American Central tiebreaker game between the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins with Ron Darling, Harold Reynolds and field reporter Marc Fein.
In 2009, Chip Caray, Ron Darling, and field reporter Craig Sager called the one game playoff between the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers for the American League Central title.
Brian Anderson took over for Johnson as the lead play-by-play man for TBS during the 2011 postseason because Johnson had to care for his son Michael (who suffers from Muscular dystrophy and was placed in intensive care around the same time as the playoffs).
Mike Bordick, a color analyst for the Orioles' regular-season telecasts, and Steve Physioc, a play-by-play man for the Royals' TV/radio broadcasts, were employed as field-level commentators for TBS' coverage of the 2014 American League Championship Series along with Matt Winer.
Don Orsillo replaced Johnson on TBS' 2018 ALDS coverage after Johnson announced that he would not cover the Major League Baseball playoffs as a result of his treatment for the blood clots in both of his legs.
On September 24, 2020, TBS announced that Johnson and Curtis Granderson would replace Casey Stern and Gary Sheffield and the respective host and co-analyst for their 2020 postseason studio show. Granderson would join Pedro Martínez and Jimmy Rollins, after joining them as a guest analyst in 2019.
On August 20, 2021, reports emerged that TBS was nearing an agreement with Bob Costas to host their coverage of that year's NLCS. The plan would be for Costas to alleviate some of Johnson's workload since Johnson also has his duties hosting Inside the NBA for TNT. On October 7, 2021, WarnerMedia officially confirmed that Costas would be joining TBS for their postseason baseball coverage starting on October 16.
Criticism of TBS's coverage
TBS's coverage has been met with criticism by some observers. As with TNT's NBA playoff coverage, MLB playoff games on TBS are not made available to local broadcast television stations in the participating teams' designated market areas. Under the previous contract, ESPN was required to make those games available over-the-air in these local markets.
Following the Philadelphia Phillies' victory in the 2009 NLCS, studio host Ernie Johnson went to the podium to present the championship trophy. Upon announcing what a pleasure it was for TBS to cover the series, the Philadelphia fans responded with a heavy barrage of boos, to which Johnson quipped, "Why, thank you."
Fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates, which in 2013, had its first winning season as well as its postseason appearance since 1992, took TBS to task for not broadcasting the traditional pre-game player introductions, "The Star-Spangled Banner", or ceremonial first pitch during their coverage of the National League Wild Card playoff game against the Cincinnati Reds.
Following Game 1 of the 2016 World Series, Fox affiliate WJW in Cleveland, which would carry the Cleveland Indians' World Series appearance via Fox, aired a brief commercial criticizing TBS, in light of the mistakes and errors that had run rampant throughout their playoff coverage.
Commentators
Some sports media critics were critical of the announcers used in the coverage as being more skewed towards the National League than the American League, along with the choice of Chip Caray (who, along the way, was criticized for making factual mistakes during postseason broadcasts) as the lead voice of the network's coverage, as he had only done Braves baseball telecasts during the 2007 season before TBS assumed rights to playoff coverage. In response to such criticisms, Caray said, "It wasn't the job that I had when I came here in the first place. It would be like being a pinch-hitter or being a relief pitcher that works once every ten days. I'm better when I work more." TBS and Caray parted ways following the 2009 playoffs. Ernie Johnson Jr. and Brian Anderson have both since contributed as the lead announcer since 2010.
Besides that of Caray, Dick Stockton's performance has in particular, been subject to criticism. Stockton, for instance, during the 2013 NLDS (St. Louis vs. Pittsburgh) was cited as often misidentifying players, generally appearing confused at times, and never having hosting chemistry with his analyst Bob Brenly. Meanwhile, Joe Simpson, who was the only holdover from the Braves TBS Baseball days, has been accused of not really adding anything to the booth and often deferring to John Smoltz during their time together on the 2013 Boston–Tampa Bay series.
Ernie Johnson Jr., meanwhile, has been accused of not playing to his strengths as a broadcaster in his role as TBS's lead play-by-play man. More to the point, Johnson was accused of (in part because of his very conversational announcing style in the booth) never really seeming to be able to capture the big, exciting, transformational moments during his broadcast of the 2014 American League Wild Card Game between the Kansas City Royals and Oakland Athletics. For example, there was Johnson's rather subdued call of Brandon Moss’s second home run that gave Oakland a 5-3 lead in the top of the 6th.
During the bottom of the third inning of Game 5 of the 2015 National League Division Series between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers, TBS's cameras caught a tense exchange between Dodgers manager Don Mattingly and outfielder Andre Ethier. So when TBS went to an interview conducted between innings by Sam Ryan in the Dodgers' dugout with Mattingly, the assumption was that Ryan would ask Mattingly what happened. Ryan then proceeded to ask Mattingly instead, how he thought Zack Greinke was pitching, what he thought of the game so far. Later in the broadcast, Cal Ripken Jr. brought up what we had all seen when Ethier came up to bat again in the fifth, saying, "We’re still guessing what that argument was all about."
In Game 2 of the aforementioned Mets-Dodgers NLDS, Ripken was quick to categorize Chase Utley's slide into Mets shortstop, Rubén Tejada (which broke Tejada's leg) as a clean play, "a little late," and nothing more than "competitive baseball".
During the 2018 ALDS, analyst Ron Darling apologized after making an insensitive comment about New York Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka during Game 2 of the Yankees' series against Boston. Early in the broadcast while attempting to point out a weakness of Tanaka's, Darling said “A little chink in the armor for Tanaka here. It’s the first inning where he’s lost a little of his control.”
Technical difficulties and other miscues
TBS was unable to air most of the first inning of Game 6 of the 2008 American League Championship Series, airing a rerun of The Steve Harvey Show (which TBS held rights to at the time) in its place. TBS began airing the game just prior to the last out in the bottom of the first, with announcer Chip Caray apologizing to viewers for "technical difficulties." TBS acknowledged there was a problem with one of the routers used in the broadcast transmission of the relay of the telecast from Atlanta.
During the network's coverage of Game 1 of the 2011 American League Division Series between the Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays, TBS was alleged to have featured doctored headlines with incorrect attributions. On October 1, during the middle of an at-bat during Game 1 of the 2011 ALDS between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers, TBS suddenly cut to an ALDS game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Texas Rangers, which was airing on TNT, for about 14 seconds. Moments later (as TBS was coming out of a replay and showing the Tigers' dugout), cameras missed Yankees right fielder Nick Swisher making a diving catch (instead showing Yankees pitcher Iván Nova walking off the mound and pumping his fist). TBS (in particular, throughout their coverage of the 2011 postseason) has also been criticized for placing the center-field camera precisely in the center. Therefore, every time a pitcher began his windup, his head would block the view of home plate.
During the 2012 American League playoffs, TBS was criticized for its graphics and game preview packages. At the start of its coverage of the American League Wild Card Game between the Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers, a graphical snafu resulted in Cal Ripken Jr., who was calling the game, being credited as "Carl Ripken Jr." During Game 1 of the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers, TBS showed a graphic depicting players who played in the postseason before the age of 24 and after the age of 40. In the graphic, Willie Mays's name was misspelled as "Willie Mayes".
During their coverage of 2014 AL Wild Card Game, TBS put a graphic that incorrectly said that Oakland manager Bob Melvin was in his fourth straight playoff appearance, but this was only his third straight (2012, 2013 and 2014). Throughout the evening, TBS's broadcast was cited in not having enough adequate camera angles for replays that provided value to viewers. As opposed to productions that bring extra resources and cameras to playoff games, TBS's broadcast of this particular game was cited as feeling more like a weekly or regional telecast. That was arguably manifested in Kansas City Royals legend George Brett being forced into a "Very Funny" promo.
During the top of the third inning of Game 3 of the 2016 American League Division Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers, TBS's Matt Winer was doing a live interview with Texas third base coach Tony Beasley, when Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus hit a home run. Winer had to cut off Beasley during the interview to tell the audience that Andrus got "a double", before then realizing it was a home run. When Andrus finally rounded third base, Winer said, "Excuse me, that's not a double; that's a home run." As a direct result of all of this, there wasn't full screen of the Andrus homer, nor was there a proper play-by-play of the home run.
During the 2016 season, TBS debuted a new scoreboard design that was criticized by viewers for its large size. The following season, TBS was criticized again for having initially made its scoreboard too small.
Presentation
Music
The theme is composed by Mark Willott.
Digital on-screen graphics
Before TBS gained rights to broadcast MLB postseason games in 2007, the network used a score bug on the top left-hand corner of the screen for its Braves telecasts. It was upgraded midway through the 2004 season and used through 2007.
2007–2010
The on-screen score graphic during this period covered the entire top of the screen, unlike the Braves TBS Baseball graphic, which only took up the left half of the top. The look is almost identical to that used during Fox's baseball coverage, except that the illustration of the basepaths is near the left side of the screen instead of flushed on the right. The batting order starting lineup used beginning in 2008 resembles that of a cellphone. There is also a pitch tracker that can only be seen on the network's high-definition feed.
2011–2015
With the start of the 2011 postseason, TBS planned to introduce the following
Bloomberg Stats: TBS would use Bloomberg Stats as means to integrate comprehensive statistical information into each telecast.
Liberovision: An innovative 3D interactive telestrator meant to give fans a new perspective of instant replays.
New graphics that intend to feature improved functionality with a nostalgic feel.
Pitch Trax: An in-game technology that illustrates pitch location throughout the games.
TBS's standard definition feed now airs a letterboxed version of the native HD feed during game broadcasts to match Fox's default widescreen SD presentation, allowing the right side pitch tracking graphic to be seen by those viewing the SD feed.
2016–present
At the beginning of the 2016 season, TBS introduced new graphics that were used all season, including the postseason.
The score box, which was originally docked to the top and left edges of the screen, was completely redesigned for 2017 after much criticism during the 2016 postseason for its large size. Like the 2016 score bug, the current one still stands in the top left corner, only it is smaller.
In 2020, the score bug was moved to the bottom left corner. For the 2021 postseason, the score bug was moved back to the top left corner.
References
External links
Press Release: MLB, FOX, and Turner reach new television agreements
Fang's Bites – TBS
MLB (postseason)
Searchable Network TV Broadcasts
MLB ON TBS - WarnerMedia Pressroom
TBS
2007 American television series debuts
2010s American television series
2020s American television series
TBS (American TV channel) original programming
Turner Sports
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The Persian language in the Indian subcontinent (), before the British colonisation, was the region's lingua franca and a widely used official language in North India. The language was brought into South Asia by various Turkic and Afghan dynasties from the 11th century onwards, notable of which were the Ghaznavids, Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Dynasty. Persian held official status in the court and the administration within these empires. It largely replaced Sanskrit as the language of politics, literature, education, and social status in the subcontinent.
The spread of Persian closely followed the political and religious growth of Islam in the Indian subcontinent. However Persian historically played the role of an overarching, often non-sectarian language connecting the diverse people of the region. It also helped construct a Persian identity, incorporating the Indian subcontinent into the transnational world of Greater Iran, or Ajam. Persian's historical role and functions in the subcontinent have caused the language to be compared to English in the modern-day region.
Persian began to decline with the gradual deterioration of the Mughal Empire. Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) and English overshadowed Persian in importance as British authority grew in the Indian subcontinent. Persian's official status was displaced by English in 1835 by the British East India Company, and Persian fell out of currency in the subsequent British Raj.
Persian's linguistic legacy in the region is apparent through its impact on the Indo-Aryan languages. It played a formative role in the emergence of Hindustani, and had a relatively strong influence on Punjabi, Sindhi, and Kashmiri. Other languages like Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Rajasthani, and Odia also have a considerable amount of loan words from Persian.
Background
Persian's arrival in the Indian subcontinent was the result of a larger trend in Greater Iran. In the aftermath of the Muslim conquest of Persia, new Iranian-Islamic empires were emerging, reviving Persian culture in a new Islamic context. This period is sometimes termed the Iranian Intermezzo, spanning the 9th to 10th centuries, and reestablished in the Persian language the refinement and prestige that Arabic had laid claim to. In the process, Persian adopted Arabic's script and incorporated many Arabic words into its vocabulary, evolving into a new form known as New Persian. These developments were centred in the regions of Khorasan and Transoxiana.
The empires employed Turkic slave warriors in their military, which exposed them a Persianate culture. These warriors were able to rise up the ranks and gain political power; they began the synthesis of a Turco-Persian tradition, wherein the Persian language and culture was patronised by Turkic rulers.
The resulting Turkic dynasties, such as the Seljuks and Ghaznavids, expanded outwards in search of new opportunities. Immediately adjacent to the lands of the Persians and Turks, the Indian subcontinent became a target for the Ghaznavid Empire, and New Persian (also referred to as Classical Persian) was carried along with them. This set the precedent for Persian's further growth in the subcontinent. The Turkic and Mongol dynasties that subsequently arrived in South Asia emulated this Persianised high culture, since it had become the predominant courtly culture in Western and Central Asia. Similar developments in other regions of Asia led to the establishment of Persian as literary and official language in a region stretching from "China to the Balkans, and from Siberia to southern India", by the 15th century. The arrival of Persian in the Indian subcontinent was hence no isolated event, and eventually positioned the region within a much larger Persian-speaking world.
History
Arrival and Growth
The Ghaznavid conquests of the 11th century introduced Persian to the Indian subcontinent. As Mahmud of Ghazni established a power base in India, the centre of Persian literary patronage shifted from Ghazna to the Punjab, especially at the empire's second capital Lahore. This began a steady influx of Persian-speaking soldiers, settlers and literati from Iran, Khorasan, and other places of the Persianate world. This flow would stay largely uninterrupted for the next few centuries. Notable Persian poets of this early period include Abu-al-Faraj Runi and Masud Sa'd Salman, both born in the Indian subcontinent. The Ghurids expanded this territory, shifting Perso-Islamic influence further into the subcontinent and claiming Delhi.
Virtually every Islamic power thereafter followed the Ghaznavids' practice of using Persian as a courtly language. Delhi became a major centre of Persian literary culture in Hindustan from the 13th century onwards, with the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate by the post-Ghurid Mamluks. The successive Khiljis and Tughluqs sponsored many pieces of literature in the language; celebrated poet Amir Khusrow produced much of his Persian work under their patronage. Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the Turkic rulers of the Delhi Sultanate encouraged the flow of eminent Persian-speaking personalities (such as poets, scribes, and holy people) into the subcontinent, granting them land to settle in rural areas. This flow was increased by the Mongol conquests of the Perso-Islamic world, as many Persian elite sought refuge in North India. Hence the Persian language established itself in court and literature, but also through a sizeable population often associated with Islamic nobility. The Delhi Sultanate was largely the impetus for the spread of Persian, since its borders stretched deep into the subcontinent. In the wake of its gradual disintegration, the various outgrowths of the empire in regions as far as the Deccan and Bengal resultantly adopted Persian.
Apart from courtly influence, Persian also spread through religion, particularly the Islamic faith of Sufism. Many Sufi missionaries to the subcontinent had Persian roots, and although they used local Indic languages to reach their followers, they used Persian to converse amongst each other and write literature. This resulted in a diffusion process into the local followers of the faith. Sufi centres (Khanqah) served as focal points for this cultural interaction. Sufism also interacted with Hinduism through the Bhakti movement; Abidi and Gargesh speculate that this could have further introduced Persian to locals.
The language had a brief dormant period in the late 15th to early 16th century, after the Delhi Sultanate was sacked by Timur. Afghan dynasties such as the Suris and Lodis gained control in the north of the subcontinent, and although Afghans at the time were a part of the Persianate world, these rulers were not well-acquainted with the language. In this era, empires all over the subcontinent began to employ Hindustani's emerging predecessor Hindavi (also known as Dehlavi or Deccani) as a language of the court. Work in Persian was however still produced, and Persian still featured in official documents. Notably, the Delhi Sultanate's official language was declared as Persian by Sikandar Lodi, which began a diffusion process outside Islamic nobility; Hindus for the first time began to learn the language for purposes of employment, and there is evidence of them even teaching the language in this period.
Height
Persian experienced a revival with the advent of the Mughal emperors (1526–1857), under whom the language reached its zenith in the Indian subcontinent. The Mughals were of Timurid origin; they were Turco-Mongols, and had been Persianised to an extent. However, the early Mughal court preferred their ancestral Turkic language. This linguistic situation began to change when the second Mughal Emperor Humayun reconquered India with the aid of Safavid Iran, ushering many Iranians into the subcontinent. His successor Akbar developed these ties by granting these Iranians positions in the imperial service. He also undertook generous efforts to attract many Persian literati from Iran. Akbar's actions established Persian as the language of the Mughal court, transitioning the royal family out of the ancestral language (his own son and successor Jahangir, for example, was more proficient in Persian than Turkic). Under Akbar, Persian was made the official language of the Mughal Empire, a policy it would retain till its demise. His pluralist rule resulted in many natives becoming more open to learning the language, and educational reforms were introduced in madrasas to improve Persian learning. The Mughal association with the Persian language continued with Akbar's successors; the literary environment created under them led one Shah Jahan-era poet to comment,
Under the Mughals, Persian took prominence as the language of culture, education, and prestige. Their policies resulted in a process of "Persianisation" by which many Indian communities increasingly adopted the language for social purposes. Professions requiring Persian proficiency, previously occupied by Iranians and Turks, came to be shared with Indians. For example, groups such as the Kayasthas and Khatris came to dominate the Mughal finance departments; Indians taught Persian in madrasas alongside masters of the language from Iran. Moreover, the complete Persianisation of the Mughal administrative system meant that the language reached both urban centres as well as villages, and a larger audience for Persian literature developed.
In this way, Persian became a second language to many across North India; Muzaffar Alam contends that it neared the status of a first language. By the 18th century, many Indians in the north of the subcontinent had a "native speaker's competence in Persian".
Decline
Following Aurangzeb's death, Persian began to fall into decline, being displaced by Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu). The arrival and strengthening of British political power added a growing influence of English as well. However, for a long time Persian was still the dominant language of the subcontinent, used in education, Muslim rule, the judiciary, and literature. The East India Company acknowledged Persian as a "language of command", necessary to communicate with and control the Indian population. Hence many British officials arriving in India learned Persian in colleges established by the Company. The teachers in these colleges were often Indian. In some cases, Britishers even took over as Persian professors, sidelining the role of the Indians.
This linguistic situation took a turn in the 19th century. Following the English Education Act of 1835, Persian's status began to fall away, as the British firmly instituted English education policies over Persian (and Sanskrit). English replaced Persian in education and in the court. The British actively promoted Hindustani as the means of common communication. Additionally, nationalistic movements in the subcontinent led to various communities embracing vernacular languages over Persian. Still, Persian was not fully supplanted, and remained the language of "intercultural communication". Famed poet Mirza Ghalib lived during this transitional era, and produced many works in the language. As late as the 1930s, Persian was still a favoured college degree for Hindu students, despite the consolidation of English-medium education. Muhammad Iqbal's prolific Persian work, produced during the turn of the 20th century, is considered the last great instance of the Indo-Persian tradition.
Nile Green asserts that the advent of printing technology in 19th-century British India also played a part in Persian's decline. While the printing press enabled the highest Persian textual output in the subcontinent's history, it also greatly amplified more widely spoken languages such as Hindustani and Bengali, exacerbating the shift towards vernacular languages in the region.
Regional use
This section gives a closer look at the use of Persian in selected regions, specifically those outside Central-Northern India, which was often the centre of Islamic power in the Indian subcontinent.
Punjab
As the primary entry point and frontier region of the Indian subcontinent, the Punjab has had a long association with the Persian language. The name of the region is itself a Persian coinage (panj-āb, ). Following the defeat of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, classical Persian was established as a courtly language in the region during the late 10th century under Ghaznavid rule. After Lahore was made the second capital of the Ghaznavids, it played host to great poets in the court, and was settled by many Persian-speakers from the West. The first Indian-born Persian poet was from Lahore, as were the earliest notable figures in Indo-Persian literature, Masud Sa'd Salman and Abu-al-Faraj Runi.
In the 13th century, Nasiruddin Qabacha declared himself independent of the Ghurids. His dominion, the Sindh, was conducive to Persian literary activity at the centres of Multan and Uch, where Muhammad Aufi wrote the Lubab ul-Albab.
Employed by Punjabis in literature, Persian achieved prominence in the region during the following centuries, as the region came under the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals. The language of the Sikh gurus (Sant Bhasha) incorporated Persian, and some of their works were done entirely in the language; examples are the Zafarnama and the Hikāyatān. Sikhism has since retained many Persian elements in its religious vocabulary.
Persian continued to act as a courtly language for various empires in Punjab through the early 19th century, and dominated most literary spheres. It served finally as the official state language of the Sikh Empire, under which Persian literature such as the Zafarnamah-e-Ranjit Singh was produced, preceding British conquest and the decline of Persian in South Asia. Persian-medium schools in the Punjab lasted until the 1890s. Muhammad Iqbal, a Punjabi, was one of the last prolific writers of Persian in the subcontinent.
Kashmir
Kashmir was another region impacted heavily by Persian. Though it had long been a centre of Sanskrit literature, the language was in decline from the 13th century, due to internal social factors. Persian was introduced to the region in the 14th century, spreading through the Islamisation of Kashmir by early Sufi saints such as Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani. The emergence of the native Shah Mir dynasty shortly after saw Persian become the official language of administration. Some of its members, chiefly Zain-ul-Abidin, patronised various kinds of literature.
Persian enjoyed a superior position in the valley as prestige language from its early days. It retained its political and literary status for the next 500 years under the Mughals, Afghans, and Sikhs. Poetry, histories and biographies were among some of the works produced over these years, and many Kashmiris received an education in Persian for careers as accountants and scribes in government. Iranians often migrated to Kashmir, and the region was known in the Persianate world as Iran-e-saghir, or "Little Iran".
The historical prevalence of Persian in the region is illustrated by the case of the Kashmiri Pandits, who adopted Persian in place of their ancestral language Sanskrit, in order to make Hindu teachings more accessible to the population. They translated texts such as the Ramayana and Shivapurana, even composing hymns in praise of Shiva through the medium of ghazal. Some of the earliest Persian literature of the region in fact constituted such translations of Sanskrit works; under the Shah Mirs the monumental Sanskrit history of Kashmir Rajatarangini was translated into Bahr al-asmar, and the efforts of the Pandits added Hindu astronomical and medical treatises to the literature.
The advent of the Dogra dynasty (under British suzerainty) in 1849 led to the decline of Persian in Kashmir. Although they inherited and used a Persian administrative system, social changes brought by them led to Urdu being instituted as the language of administration in 1889.
Bengal
Persian was introduced into Bengal through the Bengal Sultanate, established by the Ilyas Shahi dynasty in the 14th century. During their rule, the language was spoken in the court and employed in administration. It was used primarily in urban centres such as Gaur, Pandua, and Sonargaon, having diffused into the elite population (Muslim and non-Muslim) through the administration. This led to a growing audience for Persian literature, indicated by famed Persian poet Hafez, who referenced Bengal in a verse from his Diwan:
However, Persian was not the sole language of governance; the majority of official documents were written in Arabic, as were most inscriptions. Coins were minted with Arabic text. Notably, there is no evidence of significant Persian literary patronage under the Bengal Sultans; court poetry and creative texts were composed in the Bengali language instead. Persian literature mostly came from outside the court, such as the works of Sufism and the "popular literature" created by Bengali Muslims.
In the 16th century, the Bengal region came under the Mughals to form the Bengal Subah, and in this era Persian's impact was much more profound. Mughal rule brought a highly Persianised court and administration to Bengal, as well as an influx of Iranians and northern Indians. This established Persian as a language of public affairs and courtly circles, and an indispensable tool of social mobility. The Persian language became entrenched in the Bengali Hindu upper class, remaining into the 19th century. The imposition of Mughal administration on the region also meant that the general populace came into contact with officers that did not know Bengali. This led to a diffusion process, as locals learned the Persian language in order to communicate with them.
Deccan
Although considerably distanced from North India, the Deccan was also a recipient of Persian's linguistic impact. Persianate culture was brought to the Deccan fleetingly through the efforts of the Delhi Sultanate in the early 14th century. Persian finally gained a foothold in the region with the establishment of the Bahmani Sultanate in 1347, which used the language for official purposes. The dynasty had a great interest in Persian culture, and several members were proficient in the language, producing their own literature. Literati from Northern India found themselves welcome at the court, and scholars from Iran were invited as well. Madrasas were built over the expanse of the kingdom, such as the Mahmud Gawan Madrasa at Bidar, where Persian was taught. A notable poet patronised by the Bahmans was Abdul Isami, who wrote the first Persian history of the Muslim conquest of India titled Futuh-us-Salatin. In spite of this, Richard Eaton writes that Persian was much less widely understood in the Deccan region than vernacular languages, and contrasts this situation with the Persian proficiency in the north of the subcontinent.
During the turn of the 16th century, the Bahmani Sultanate splintered into the Deccan Sultanates, which were also Persianate in culture. They used Persian as a courtly language, as well as for official and administrative purposes. The language received literary patronage; for example, Persian poet Muhammad Zuhuri, author of the Sāqīnāmah, was a prominent figure at Ibrahim Adil Shah II's court in Bijapur. However, the sultans simultaneously promoted regional languages such as Telugu, Marathi, and Deccani (the southern variety of Hindustani), at times even using them in administration. For example, Alam writes that Telugu was the language of the sultan for the Qutub Shahis, and that Persian was removed from the Bijapur Sultanate's administrative system by Ibrahim Adil Shah I in favour of Marathi; these are corroborated by Eaton.
Hyderabad State, ruled by the Nizams of Hyderabad, was one of the last important niches of Persian cultivation in the Indian subcontinent. The princely state used Persian as its official language until 1884, when it was phased out in favour of Urdu.
Literature
A large corpus of Persian literature was produced by inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. Prior to the 19th century, the region produced more Persian literature than Iran. This consisted of several types of works: poetry (such as rubaʿi, qasidah), panegyrics (often in praise of patron kings), epics, histories, biographies, and scientific treatises. These were written by members of all faiths, not just Muslims. Persian also was used for religious expression in the subcontinent, the most prominent example of which is Sufi literature.
This extended presence and interaction with native elements led to the Persian prose and poetry of the region developing a distinct, Indian touch, referred to as sabk-e-Hindi (Indian style) among other names. It was characterised by multiple traits: the presence of many Indic loanwords, adopted to describe the language's new environment; Indian phrases and themes; and an ornate, flowery poetic style. For example, the monsoon season was romanticised in Indo-Persian poetry, something that had no parallel in the native Irani style. Due to these differences, Iranian poets considered the style "alien" and often expressed a derisive attitude towards sabk-e-Hindi.
Translations from other literary languages greatly contributed to the Indo-Persian literary corpus. Arabic works made their way into Persian (e.g. Chach Nama). Turkic, the older language of Islamic nobility, also saw translations (such as that of Chagatai Turkic "Baburnama" into Persian). A vast number of Sanskrit works were rendered into Persian, especially under Akbar, in order to transfer indigenous knowledge; these included religious texts such as the Mahabharata (Razmnama), Ramayana and the four Vedas, but also more technical works on topics like medicine and astronomy, such as Zij-e-Mohammed-Shahi. This provided Hindus access to ancient texts that previously only Sanskritised, higher castes could read.
Influence on Indic languages
As a prestige language and lingua franca over a period of 800 years in the Indian subcontinent, Classical Persian exerted a vast influence over numerous Indic languages. Generally speaking, the degree of impact is seen to increase the more one moves towards the north-west of the subcontinent, i.e. the Indo-Iranian frontier. For example, the Indo-Aryan languages have the most impact from Persian; this ranges from a high appearance in Punjabi, Sindhi, Kashmiri, and Gujarati, to more moderate representation in Bengali and Marathi. The largest foreign element in the Indo-Aryan languages is Persian. Conversely, the Dravidian languages have seen a low level of influence from Persian. They still feature loans from the language, some of which are direct, and some through Deccani (the southern variety of Hindustani), due to the Islamic rulers of the Deccan.
Hindustani is a notable exception to this geographic trend. It is an Indo-Aryan lingua franca spoken widely across the Hindi Belt and Pakistan, best described as an amalgamation of a Khariboli linguistic base with Persian elements. It has two formal registers, the Persianised Urdu (which uses the Perso-Arabic alphabet) and the de-Persianised, Sanskritised Hindi (which uses Devanagari). Even in its vernacular form, Hindustani contains the most Persian influence of all the Indo-Aryan languages, and many Persian words are used commonly in speech by those identifying as "Hindi" and "Urdu" speakers alike. These words have been assimilated into the language to the extent they are not recognised as "foreign" influences. This is due to the fact that Hindustani's emergence was characterised by a Persianisation process, through patronage at Islamic courts over the centuries. Hindustani's Persian register Urdu in particular has an even greater degree of influence, going as far as to admit fully Persian phrases such as "makānāt barā-ē farōḵht" (houses for sale). It freely uses its historical Persian elements, and looks towards the language for neologisms. This is especially true in Pakistan (see #Contemporary).
The following Persian features are hence shared by many Indic languages but vary in the manner described above, with Hindustani and particularly its register Urdu bearing Persian's mark the most. It is also worth noting that due to the politicisation of language in the subcontinent, Persian features make an even stronger appearance among the Muslim speakers of the above languages.
Vocabulary
The most significant result of Indo-Persian language contact has been the seepage of a vast and varied Persian vocabulary into the Indic lexicon, particularly the Indo-Aryan languages.
Loanwords
As the initial contact points of Persianate rule, administration and urban life provided the earliest types of loans in the Indo-Aryan languages. In this initial period, Persian words were often borrowed out of necessity, to describe newly-introduced foreign objects and concepts. Eventually however, Persian loans began to permeate the Indic languages on a broader level. Kuczkiewicz-Fraś identifies poets and Sufis as highly conducive to this process; these groups knew both Persian and local languages, facilitating contact between them and dispersing the same into their followers. The prestige status that Persian later attained under the Mughals resulted in Persian vocabulary being integrated more consciously (rather than out of necessity) into the Indo-Aryan languages.
Today, Persian loans are found in almost all spheres of usage, and nouns make up the largest portion of them. Many are used commonly in everyday speech. They often have an altered pronunciation when compared to modern Iranian Persian; this is partly because the Indic languages took in the older pronunciations of Classical Persian used by Persian speakers in the subcontinent (see #Contemporary section on the nature of this Indian Persian). Nativisation is also responsible for the differences in pronunciation, and is determined by the particular recipient language. One nativisation common to many languages is the elongation of the haa-e-mukhtafi in Persian to ā. Hence Classical Persian tāzah (fresh) became tāzā, āinah (mirror) became āinā (in modern Iranian Persian, these are tāzeh and āineh respectively). Nativisation has also resulted in phonological changes (see #Phonology below). Outside of these differences, some loans may still appear strange to modern Persian either due to semantic shift or because the inherited word is now archaic in Persian.
A categorised list of Persian vocabulary found in the Indic languages is provided below, and is far from exhaustive:
Indirect loans
The Persian, Arabic, and Turkic languages that arrived in the subcontinent shared a sizeable amount of vocabulary due to historical factors surrounding Iran and Central Asia. However it is generally agreed that Persian, with its vast dominance in the Indian subcontinent, was the primary medium of transferring vocabulary from the other two languages.
The majority of Arabic words present in Indic languages entered through Persian; for example, the terms listed under "law" above are of Arabic origin, as are miscellaneous words like "lekin" and "qalam". This is due to the fact that a vast number of Arabic words had already been assimilated into Persian before it arrived in the Indian subcontinent (see #Background). The largest impact of Arabic in the Indic lexicon is religious terminology (not listed), and many of even these are through Persian. The influence of Persian mediation is observed in the semantic shift of Arabic words in the Indic lexicon; for example, "fursat" means 'opportunity' in Arabic, but the Indic languages have inherited the Persian-altered meaning 'leisure time'. For these reasons Persian linguistic influence is often termed 'Perso-Arabic'. It is however important to note that Persian being the exclusive vehicle for Arabic in the Indian subcontinent is not a surety, and direct loans from Arabic cannot be ruled out.
To a lesser extent, Turkic words also entered through Persian. In general it is unclear which Turkic words are Persian-mediated, and which direct, since Turkic was used (albeit to a limited extent) in the early medieval period of the subcontinent. Additionally, there is the reverse possibility that Turkic may have contributed some Persian words, since it itself had earlier been Persianised in a similar process to that of the Indic languages (see #Background).
Compounds
Persian has also contributed compound formations in Indic languages, wherein Persian words and affixes are combined with Indic roots:
Phonology
Through loanwords, Persian has introduced the sounds q, kh, gh, z, f into many Indic languages. These have been nativised to k, kh, g, j, ph respectively (e.g. khud → khud, ghulām → gulām). However, the original sounds are considered valid in these languages, with the original forms of z and f occurring very commonly. Scripts have also accommodated these sounds; Devanagari adds a dot (nuqta) under the native letters to indicate the Persian loan (). Urdu retains q, kh, gh to a greater degree, regarding them as proper pronunciation (talaffuz). The same is seen in formal contexts among those speakers of Punjabi, Bengali etc that draw from Perso-Arabic elements, such as Muslims. Additionally, the sound /ʃ/, or "sh" appears in the Indo-Aryan languages largely due to the entry of Persian vocabulary (although it also appears in loans from Sanskrit).
Grammar
A lesser but notable impact of Persian is the transfer of simple grammatical structures. These are the ezāfe (Salām-ē-Ishq, Shēr-ē-Bangla) and -o- (rōz-o-shab). They inherit the same meaning as Persian, but are generally used in more formal, literary contexts. They appear in multiple impacted languages, but to varying extents, with the most usage occurring in the Hindustani register Urdu. Additionally, the conjunction ki/ke used extensively in these languages to mean "that" is drawn from Persian.
In addition to the above features, Urdu in particular has inherited many prepositions from Persian, such as az (from), ba (to), bar (on), dar (in), as well as prepositional phrases like ba'd azan (afterwards). Urdu also displays the Persian practice of pluralising nouns by suffixing -ān or, less commonly, -hā. Due to the presence of such grammatical elements as well as an extensive repository of Perso-Arabic vocabulary, Urdu is able to admit fully Persian phrases. Note that Urdu here refers to a formal register of Hindustani, and hence such Persianised diction appears in the news, education etc rather than common speech.
Writing systems
The prevalence of Persian also resulted in the Perso-Arabic script being adopted for several languages, such as Hindustani (as Urdu), Punjabi, and Kashmiri. Their alphabets differ slightly to accommodate unique sounds not found in Persian. Additionally, the Nastaliq calligraphic hand popularised by Persian is the main style used for writing Urdu and Punjabi.
Contemporary
Indian Persian
The Persian language is now largely defunct in the Indian subcontinent. However, it still lingers in some scholarly and literary circles; for example, the University of Kashmir in Srinagar has been publishing the Persian-language journal Dānish since 1969. Some colleges and universities in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh offer Persian as a course of study. Commenting on the state of the field in 2008, Abidi and Gargesh wrote that there was a "general lack of interest" in Persian studies.
Though Arabic largely dominates the realm of Islamic liturgy and theology in the Indian subcontinent, Persian can be seen in some religious spheres: the dhikr sessions of Sufism often employ Persian poetry in song, and the Sufi devotional music genre of qawwali also uses Persian in parallel with local languages. Famed qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan sang sometimes in Persian.
Indian Persian is linguistically the same as Modern Persian. However, when compared to modern Iranian Persian, it differs significantly in pronunciation. This is because the Persian spoken in the subcontinent is still the Classical Persian historically used as a lingua franca throughout the Persianate world. The most prominent difference is seen in the vowel system: in Iran, the language underwent some isolated developments to reach its present form, by which the eight-vowel system transformed into a six-vowel one. Indian Persian has continued to use the older system, and has hence has been called a "petrification" of Classical Persian. This is apparent in words like sher (lion, now shīr in Iran) and rōz (day, now rūz). Notably, the Dari Persian of Afghanistan also retains this old system. There have also been some changes in Indian Persian due to nativisation. Nasal vowels, which are not observed in Modern Persian, occur in the endings -ān, -īn, and -ūn (mardāṅ, dīṅ, chūṅ).
The situation is summarised by Matthews, who says that Persian in the Indian subcontinent is usually pronounced as if it were Urdu (Hindustani). Recently, there have been efforts in the subcontinent to switch to using Persian as it is pronounced in Iran.
Sociopolitics
Language has always been a dimension of Hindu-Muslim tension in the Indian subcontinent, and the Perso-Arabic elements in Indo-Aryan languages have played a part in this. In 19th-century British India, divisions on religious lines led to Hindu groups advocating to de-Persianise language, and Muslims embracing the Perso-Arabic element. Such tensions later contributed to the Partition of India. The most significant and lasting impact of the linguistic divide has been the emergence of Hindi and Urdu as two separate literary registers of Hindustani, both of which are recognised on national levels. Conscious attempts to alter language on such a basis have also been observed in other languages that have both Hindu and Muslim speech communities, such as Punjabi. Urdu has been undergoing further Persianisation in Pakistan, due to a need for new words and coinages to suit modern times.
In the modern era, though Persian is in disuse, Persian loanwords have continued to move into regional languages through Hindustani. A notable example is that of Pakistan, where the imposition of Urdu as national language and its widespread use has led to a growing Perso-Arabic influence on Pakistan's indigenous languages.
Zoroastrian Persians
The Parsi community speaks a dialect of Gujarati which has been influenced by their ancestral language of Persian. In 1932, the first ever sound film in the Persian language, Dokhtar-e-Lor, was produced in Bombay by Parsi Indians. There is also a small population of Zoroastrian Iranis in India, who migrated in the 19th century to escape religious persecution in Qajar Iran and speak a Dari dialect.
See also
Indo-Persian culture
Lisan ud-Dawat, Perso-Arab-influenced Gujarati
Persian Inscriptions on Indian Monuments (book)
Gallery
Notes
References
Bibliography
Further reading
Chopra, R. M., The Rise, Growth And Decline of Indo-Persian Literature, Iran Culture House, New Delhi, 2012.
External links
Perso-Indica - Online research and publishing project on Indo-Persian treatises and translations
Languages of South Asia
Cultural history of India
Persian language
Mughal Empire
History of Pakistan
Cultural history of Pakistan
Persian language in Pakistan
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Polly Jean Harvey (born 9 October 1969) is an English singer, songwriter and musician. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments.
Harvey began her career in 1988 when she joined local band Automatic Dlamini as a vocalist, guitarist and saxophonist. The band's frontman, John Parish, became her long-term collaborator. In 1991, she formed an eponymous trio called PJ Harvey and subsequently began her career as PJ Harvey. The trio released two studio albums called Dry (1992) and Rid of Me (1993) before disbanding, after which Harvey continued as a solo artist. Since 1995, she has released a further nine studio albums with collaborations from various musicians including Parish, former bandmate Rob Ellis, Mick Harvey, and Eric Drew Feldman, and has also worked extensively with record producer Flood.
Among the accolades Harvey has received are both the 2001 and 2011 Mercury Prize for Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000) and Let England Shake (2011), respectively, making her the only artist to have been awarded the prize twice. She has also garnered eight Brit Award nominations, seven Grammy Award nominations and two further Mercury Prize nominations. Rolling Stone awarded her three accolades: 1992's Best New Artist and Best Singer Songwriter, and 1995's Artist of the Year. Rolling Stone also listed Rid of Me, To Bring You My Love, and Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea on its list of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2011, she was awarded for Outstanding Contribution To Music at the NME Awards. In June 2013, she was awarded an MBE for services to music.
Early life
Polly Jean Harvey was born on 9 October 1969 in Bridport, Dorset, the second child of Ray and Eva Harvey. Her parents owned a quarrying business, and she grew up on the family farm in Corscombe. During her childhood, she attended school in nearby Beaminster, where she received guitar lessons from folk singer-songwriter Steve Knightley. Her parents introduced her to music that would later influence her work, including blues, Captain Beefheart and Bob Dylan. Her parents were avid music fans and regularly arranged get-togethers and small gigs, counting Ian Stewart among their oldest friends.
As a teenager, Harvey began learning saxophone and joined an eight-piece instrumental group Bologne, run by composer Andrew Dickson. She was also a guitarist with folk duo the Polekats, with whom she wrote some of her earliest material. After finishing school, she joined Yeovil College and attended a visual arts foundation course.
Career
Automatic Dlamini: 1988–1991
In July 1988, Harvey became a member of Automatic Dlamini, a band based in Bristol with whom she gained extensive ensemble-playing experience. Formed by John Parish in 1983, the band consisted of a rotating line-up that at various times included Rob Ellis and Ian Oliver. Harvey had met Parish in 1987 through mutual friend Jeremy Hogg, the band's slide guitarist. Providing saxophone, guitars and background vocals, she travelled extensively during the band's early days, including performances in East and West Germany, Spain and Poland to support the band's debut studio album, The D is for Drum. A second European tour took place throughout June and July 1989. Following the tour, the band recorded Here Catch, Shouted His Father, their second studio album, between late 1989 and early 1990. This is the only Automatic Dlamini material to feature Harvey, but remains unreleased, although bootleg versions of the album are in circulation.
In January 1991, Harvey left to form her own band with former bandmates Ellis and Oliver; yet she had formed lasting personal and professional relationships with certain members, especially Parish, whom she has referred to as her "musical soulmate". Parish would subsequently contribute to, and sometimes co-produce, Harvey's solo studio albums and has toured with her a number of times. As a duo, Parish and Harvey have recorded two collaborative albums where Parish composed the music and Harvey wrote the lyrics. Additionally, Parish's girlfriend in the late 1980s was photographer Maria Mochnacz. She and Harvey became close friends and Mochnacz went on to shoot and design most of Harvey's album artwork and music videos, contributing significantly to her public image.
Harvey has said of her time with Automatic Dlamini: "I ended up not singing very much but I was just happy to learn how to play the guitar. I wrote a lot during the time I was with them but my first songs were crap. I was listening to a lot of Irish folk music at the time, so the songs were folky and full of penny whistles and stuff. It was ages before I felt ready to perform my own songs in front of other people." She also credits Parish for teaching her how to perform in front of audiences, saying "after the experience with John's band and seeing him perform I found it was enormously helpful to me as a performer to engage with people in the audience, and I probably did learn that from him, amongst other things."
PJ Harvey Trio; Dry and Rid of Me: 1991–1993
In January 1991, following her departure from Automatic Dlamini, Harvey formed her own band with former bandmates Rob Ellis and Ian Oliver. Harvey decided to name the trio PJ Harvey after rejecting other names as "nothing felt right at all or just suggested the wrong type of sound", and also to allow her to continue music as a solo artist. The trio consisted of Harvey on vocals and guitar, Ellis on drums and backing vocals, and Oliver on bass. Oliver later departed to rejoin the still-active Automatic Dlamini. He was subsequently replaced with Steve Vaughan. The trio's "disastrous" debut performance was held at a skittle alley in Charmouth Village Hall in April 1991. Harvey later recounted the event saying: "we started playing and I suppose there was about fifty people there, and during the first song we cleared the hall. There was only about two people left. And a woman came up to us, came up to my drummer, it was only a three piece, while we were playing and shouted at him 'Don't you realise nobody likes you! We'll pay you, you can stop playing, we'll still pay you!'"
The group relocated to London in June 1991 when Harvey applied to study sculpture, still undecided as to her future career. During this time, the group recorded a set of demo songs and distributed them to record labels. Independent label Too Pure agreed to release the band's debut single "Dress" in October 1991, and later signed PJ Harvey. "Dress" received mass critical acclaim upon its release and was voted Single of the Week in Melody Maker by guest reviewer John Peel, who admired "the way Polly Jean seems crushed by the weight of her own songs and arrangements, as if the air is literally being sucked out of them ... admirable if not always enjoyable." However, Too Pure provided little promotion for the single and critics claim that "Melody Maker had more to do with the success of the "Dress" single than Too Pure Records." A week after its release, the band recorded a live radio session for Peel on BBC Radio 1 on 29 October featuring "Oh, My Lover", "Victory", "Sheela-Na-Gig" and "Water".
The following February, the trio released "Sheela-Na-Gig" as their equally-acclaimed second single and their debut studio album, Dry (1992), followed in March. Like the singles preceding it, Dry received an overwhelming international critical response. The album was cited by Kurt Cobain of Nirvana as his sixteenth-favourite album ever in his posthumously published Journals. Rolling Stone also named Harvey as Songwriter of the Year and Best New Female Singer. A limited edition double LP version of Dry was released alongside the regular version of the album, containing both the original and demo versions of each track, called Dry Demonstration, and the band also received significant coverage at the Reading Festival in 1992.
Island (PolyGram) signed the trio amid a major label bidding war in mid-1992, and in December 1992 the trio travelled to Cannon Falls, Minnesota in the United States to record the follow-up to Dry with producer Steve Albini. Prior to recording with Albini, the band recorded a second session with John Peel on 22 September and recorded a version of Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited," and two new songs "Me Jane" and "Ecstasy." The recording sessions with Albini took place at Pachyderm Recording Studio and resulted in the band's major label debut Rid of Me in May 1993. Rolling Stone wrote that it "is charged with aggressive eroticism and rock fury. It careens from blues to goth to grunge, often in the space of a single song." The album was promoted by two singles, "50ft Queenie" and "Man-Size", as well as tours of the United Kingdom in May and of the United States in June, continuing there during the summer.
However, during the American leg of the tour, internal friction started to form between the members of the trio. Deborah Frost, writing for Rolling Stone, noticed "an ever widening personal gulf" between the band members, and quoted Harvey as saying "It makes me sad. I wouldn't have got here without them. I needed them back then – badly. But I don't need them anymore. We all changed as people." Despite the tour's personal downsides, footage from live performances was compiled and released on the long-form video Reeling with PJ Harvey (1993). The band's final tour was to support U2 in August 1993, after which the trio officially disbanded. In her final appearance on American television in September 1993 on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Harvey performed a solo version of "Rid of Me." As Rid of Me sold substantially more copies than Dry, 4-Track Demos, a compilation album of demos for the album was released in October and inaugurated her career as a solo artist. In early 1994, it was announced that U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, had become her manager.
To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire?: 1993–1999
As Harvey embarked on her solo career, she explored collaborations with other musicians. In 1995 she released her third studio album, To Bring You My Love, featuring former bandmate John Parish, Bad Seeds multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and French drummer Jean-Marc Butty, all of whom would continue to perform and record with Harvey throughout her career. The album was also her first material to be produced by Flood. Simultaneously a more blues-influenced and more futuristic record than its predecessors, To Bring You My Love showcased Harvey broadening her musical style to include strings, organs and synthesisers. Rolling Stone said in its review that "Harvey sings the blues like Nick Cave sings gospel: with more distortion, sex and murder than you remember. To Bring You My Love was a towering goth version of grunge." During the successive tours for the album, Harvey also experimented with her image and stage persona.
The record generated a surprise modern rock radio hit in the United States with its lead single, "Down by the Water." Three consecutive singles—"C'mon Billy", "Send His Love to Me" and "Long Snake Moan"—were also moderately successful. The album was a commercial success selling one million copies worldwide including 370,000 in the United States. It was also certified Silver in the United Kingdom within seven months of its release, having sold over 60,000 copies. In the United States, the album was voted Album of the Year by The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, USA Today, People, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Rolling Stone also named Harvey 1995's Artist of the Year and Spin ranked the album third in The 90 Greatest Albums of the 1990s, behind Nirvana's Nevermind (1991) and Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet (1990).
In July 2020, a vinyl reissue of To Bring You My Love was announced, including unreleased demos.
In 1996, following the international success of To Bring You My Love and other collaborations, Harvey began composing material that would end up on her fourth studio album, during what she referred to as "an incredibly low patch". The material diverged significantly from her previous work and introduced electronica elements into her song-writing. During recording sessions in 1997 original PJ Harvey Trio drummer Rob Ellis rejoined Harvey's band, and Flood was hired again as producer. The sessions, which continued into April the following year, resulted in Is This Desire? (1998). Though originally released to mixed reviews in September 1998, the album was a success and received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Alternative Music Performance. The album's lead single, "A Perfect Day Elise," was moderately successful in the United Kingdom, peaking at number 25 on the UK Singles Chart, her most successful single to date.
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea and Uh Huh Her: 2000–2006
In early 2000, Harvey began work on her fifth studio album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea with Rob Ellis and Mick Harvey. Written in her native Dorset, Paris and New York, the album showcased a more mainstream indie rock and pop rock sound to her previous albums and the lyrics followed themes of love that tied into Harvey's affection for New York City. The album also featured Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke on three tracks, including his lead vocals on "This Mess We're in." Upon its release in October 2000 the album was a critical and commercial success, selling over one million copies worldwide and charting in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The album's three singles—"Good Fortune", "A Place Called Home" and "This Is Love"—were moderately successful.
The album also received a number of accolades including a BRIT Award nomination for Best Female Artist and two Grammy Award nominations for Best Rock Album and Best Female Rock Performance for the album's third single, "This Is Love". However, most notably, Harvey was nominated for, and won, the 2001 Mercury Music Prize. The awards ceremony was held on the same day as the September 11 attacks on the United States and Harvey was on tour in Washington, D.C., one of the affected cities, when she won the prize. Reflecting on the win in 2011, she said: "quite naturally I look back at that and only remember the events that were taking place across the world and to win the prize on that day—it didn't have much importance in the grand scheme of things", noting "it was a very surreal day". The same year, Harvey also topped a readers' poll conducted by Q Magazine of the 100 Greatest Women in Rock Music.
During three years of various collaborations with other artists, Harvey was also working on her sixth studio album, Uh Huh Her, which was released in May 2004. For the first time since 4-Track Demos (1993), Harvey played every instrument—with the exception of drums provided by Rob Ellis—and was the sole producer. The album received "generally favourable reviews" by critics, though its production was often criticised. It was also a commercial success, debuting and peaking at number 12 in the UK Albums Chart and being certified Silver by the BPI within a month of its release.
Harvey also did an extensive world tour in promotion of the album, lasting seven months in total. Selected recordings from the tour were included on Harvey's first live DVD, On Tour: Please Leave Quietly, directed by Maria Mochnacz and released in 2006.
White Chalk and Let England Shake: 2007–2014
During her first performance since the Uh Huh Her tour at the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts on 26 May 2006, Harvey revealed that her next studio album would be almost entirely piano-based. Following the October release of The Peel Sessions 1991–2004, a compilation of songs recorded from 1991 to 2000 during her radio sessions with John Peel, she began recording her seventh studio album White Chalk in November, together with Flood, John Parish and Eric Drew Feldman and drummer Jim White in a studio in West London. White Chalk was released in September 2007 and marked a radical departure from her usual alternative rock style, consisting mainly of piano ballads. The album received favourable reviews, its style being described by one critic as containing "pseudo-Victorian elements—drama, restraint, and antiquated instruments and sounds." Harvey herself said of the album: "when I listen to the record I feel in a different universe, really, and I'm not sure whether it's in the past or in the future. The record confuses me, that's what I like—it doesn't feel of this time right now, but I'm not sure whether it's 100 years ago or 100 years in the future", summing up the album's sound as "really weird." During the tour for the album Harvey performed without a backing band, and also began performing on an autoharp, which continues to be her primary instrument after guitar and has influenced her material since White Chalk.
In April 2010, Harvey appeared on The Andrew Marr Show to perform a new song titled "Let England Shake." In a pre-performance interview with Marr, she stated that the new material she had written had been "formed out of the landscape that I've grown up in and the history of this nation" and as "a human being affected by politics." Her eighth studio album Let England Shake was released in February 2011, and received universal critical acclaim. NMEs 10/10 review summarised the album as "a record that ventures deep into the heart of darkness of war itself and its resonance throughout England's past, present and future" and other reviews also noted its themes and writing style as "bloody and forceful," mixing "ethereal form with brutal content," and "her most powerful." Dealing with the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and other episodes from English history, the album featured John Parish, Mick Harvey and Jean-Marc Butty as Harvey's backing band and the quartet toured extensively in its promotion. Following the release of the album's two well-received singles—"The Words That Maketh Murder" and "The Glorious Land"—and the collection of short films by Seamus Murphy to accompany the album, Harvey won her second Mercury Music Prize on 6 September. The award marked her as the first artist to receive the award twice, entering her into The Guinness Book of Records as the only artist to have achieved this., and sales of Let England Shake increased 1,190% overnight following her win. On 23 September, Let England Shake was certified Gold in the United Kingdom and was listed as album of the year by MOJO and Uncut.
On 3 August 2013, Harvey released a song Shaker Aamer in support of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp detainee by the same name who was the last British citizen to be held there. The song describes in detail what Aamer endured during his four-month hunger strike.
The Hope Six Demolition Project: 2015–present
On 16 January 2015, PJ Harvey began recording her ninth studio album, The Hope Six Demolition Project, in front of a live audience. A custom built recording studio was made in London's Somerset House. Uncut magazine noted that much like her previous album Let England Shake, many of the lyrics were politically charged, but this time it was more globally focused. While recording she was shown to be using saxophones, an autoharp and a bouzouki. Flood was confirmed to be the producer of the album. On 18 December 2015, Harvey released a 20-second teaser for the album, which contained a release date of spring 2016.
On 21 January 2016, the debut single, "The Wheel", was played on Steve Lamacq's show on BBC Radio 6 Music. The album was released on 15 April. A new video, "The Orange Monkey", was shared on 2 June 2016. Directed by Irish filmmaker Seamus Murphy, it was made from footage of Murphy's and Harvey's trips to Afghanistan.
The album reached #1 on the UK Albums Chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Alternative Music Album category. Harvey spent much of 2016 and 2017 touring the world with her nine-piece band, taking her critically lauded live show around North America, South America, Europe and Australasia.
Collaborations and projects
Besides her own work, Harvey has also collaborated with a number of other artists. In 1995, she recorded a duet of American folk song "Henry Lee" with partner Nick Cave and also featured on the Bob Dylan cover "Death is Not the End," both released on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Murder Ballads (1996). In the same year she sang the theme song "Who Will Love Me Now?" on Philip Ridley's film The Passion of Darkly Noon. After her 1995 tour, she met Pascal Comelade and decided to collaborate with him, singing on several tracks including "Love too Soon" on his album L'Argot du Bruit. In May 1998, before the release of Is This Desire?, she featured on Tricky's Angels with Dirty Faces, performing lead vocals on "Broken Homes", and also contributed to Sparklehorse's 2001 album It's a Wonderful Life performing guitar, piano and background vocals on two songs, "Eyepennies" and "Piano Fire." Following the tour in promotion of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, she contributed vocals to eight tracks on Volume 9: I See You Hearin' Me and Volume 10: I Heart Disco by Josh Homme's side project The Desert Sessions, also appearing in the music video for "Crawl Home." Throughout 2004, Harvey produced Tiffany Anders' album Funny Cry Happy Gift, and also produced, performed on and wrote five songs for Marianne Faithfull's album Before the Poison, and contributed background vocals on "Hit the City," "Methamphetamine Blues" and "Come to Me" on Mark Lanegan's album Bubblegum. Harvey contributed the song "Slow-Motion Movie-Star", an outtake from Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, to Mick Harvey's fourth studio album, Two of Diamonds, released in 2007.
Harvey has also recorded two studio albums with long-time collaborator John Parish. Dance Hall at Louse Point (1996) was written collectively with Parish with the exception of the song "Is That All There Is?", written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The album also listed her as Polly Jean Harvey, which may have impacted album sales. Harvey has also reflected on how the album was "an enormous turning point" and "lyrically, it moved me into areas I'd never been to before." In 1998, she also performed lead vocals on "Airplane Blues," as a soundtrack accompaniment to the Wingwalkers art exhibition by Rebecca Goddard and Parish's wife, Michelle Henning, which was released as the closing song on Parish's second solo album How Animals Move in 2002. Following the release of White Chalk, Harvey reunited with Parish to record A Woman a Man Walked By, released in March 2009. Like Dance Hall at Louse Point, the album received positive reviews and was a moderate commercial success, peaking at number 25 in the UK Albums Chart. She collaborated with Egyptian artist Ramy Essam on "The Camp", a charity single released in June 2017 to benefit displaced children in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley fleeing the Syrian Civil War.
Aside from collaborations, Harvey has also embarked on a number of projects as a composer. In January 2009, a new stage production of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler opened on Broadway. Directed by Ian Rickson and starring Mary-Louise Parker in the title role, the play featured an original score of incidental music written by Harvey. In November 2011, Harvey also composed part of the score for the Young Vic's long-running production of Hamlet in London. In May 2012, Harvey composed two songs, "Horse" and "Bobby Don't Steal", for Mark Cousins' film What is This Film Called Love?, which also features "To Bring You My Love".
In 2014, a number of Harvey's songs were featured in the second season of Peaky Blinders.
In March 2018, Harvey and Parish released a song called "Sorry For Your Loss" as tribute to singer-songwriter Mark Linkous, who committed suicide in 2010.
In 2019, Harvey composed the score for Shane Meadows' miniseries, The Virtues, broadcast on Channel 4.
Musical style and influences
Harvey possesses an expansive contralto vocal range. Harvey dislikes repeating herself in her music, resulting in very different-sounding albums. In an October 2004 interview with Rolling Stone, she said: "when I'm working on a new record, the most important thing is to not repeat myself ... that's always my aim: to try and cover new ground and really to challenge myself. Because I'm in this for learning." While her musical style has been described as alternative rock, punk blues, art rock, and avant-rock, she has experimented with various other genres including electronica, indie rock and folk music.
She is also known for changing her physical appearance for each album by altering her mode of dress or hairstyle, creating a unique aesthetic that extends to all aspects of the album, from the album art to the live performances. She works closely with friend and photographer Maria Mochnacz to develop the visual style of each album. Around the time of To Bring You My Love, for example, Harvey began experimenting with her image and adopting a theatrical aspect to her live performances. Her former fashion style, which consisted of simple black leggings, turtleneck sweaters and Doc Martens boots, was replaced by ballgowns, catsuits, wigs and excessive make-up. She also began using stage props like a Ziggy Stardust-style flashlight microphone. She denied the influence of drag, Kabuki or performance art on her new image, a look she affectionately dubbed "Joan Crawford on acid" in an interview with Spin in 1996, but admitted that "it's that combination of being quite elegant and funny and revolting, all at the same time, that appeals to me. I actually find wearing make-up like that, sort of smeared around, as extremely beautiful. Maybe that's just my twisted sense of beauty." However, she later told Dazed & Confused magazine, "that was kind of a mask. It was much more of a mask than I've ever had. I was very lost as a person, at that point. I had no sense of self left at all", and has never repeated the overt theatricality of the To Bring You My Love tour.
At an early age, she was introduced by her parents to blues music, jazz and art rock, which would later influence her: "I was brought up listening to John Lee Hooker, to Howlin' Wolf, to Robert Johnson, and a lot of Jimi Hendrix and Captain Beefheart. So I was exposed to all these very compassionate musicians at a very young age, and that's always remained in me and seems to surface more as I get older. I think the way we are as we get older is a result of what we knew when we were children." Other influential artists were "Nina Simone, the Rolling Stones, people like that I grew up listening to but find I returned to". During her teenage years, she began listening to new wave and synthpop bands such as Soft Cell, Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, although later stated that it was a phase when she was "having a bit of a rebellion against my parents' record collection." In her later teenage years, she became a fan of Pixies, and she then listened to Slint. She has named Bob Dylan, and Neil Young, when talking about her influences. Many critics have compared Harvey to Patti Smith, which Harvey dismisses as "lazy journalism". However, recently Harvey has said that Smith is "so energising to see and so passionate with what she's doing". Harvey has also cited Siouxsie Sioux in terms of live performance, stating : "She is so exciting to watch, so full of energy and human raw quality". She has also drawn inspiration from Russian folk music, Italian soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone, classical composers like Arvo Pärt, Erik Satie, Samuel Barber, and Henryk Górecki. As a lyricist, Harvey has cited numerous poets, authors and lyricists as influences on her work including Harold Pinter, T. S. Eliot, William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Ted Hughes and contemporaries such as Shane MacGowan and Jez Butterworth.
Other ventures
Outside her better-known music career, Harvey is also an occasional artist and actress. In 1998, she appeared in Hal Hartley's film The Book of Life as Magdalena—a modern-day character based on the Biblical Mary Magdalene—and had a cameo role as a Playboy Bunny in A Bunny Girl's Tale, a short film directed by Sarah Miles, in which she also performs "Nina in Ecstasy", an outtake from Is This Desire? (1998). Harvey also collaborated with Miles on another film, Amaeru Fallout 1972, which includes Harvey performing a cover of "When Will I See You Again."
Harvey is also an accomplished sculptor who has had several pieces exhibited at the Lamont Gallery and the Bridport Arts Centre. In 2010, she was invited to be the guest designer for the summer issue of Francis Ford Coppola's literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story. The issue featured Harvey's paintings and drawings alongside short stories by Woody Allen. Speaking of her artistic contributions to the magazine in 2011, Harvey said: "the first opportunity I ever had to show any work was in this magazine. They were drawn while I was writing and recording the record (Let England Shake). It does relate to the record in the way the cycle keeps happening."
In December 2013, Harvey gave her debut public poetry reading at the British Library. On 2 January 2014, she guest-edited BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
In October 2015, Harvey published her first collection of poetry, a collaboration with photographer Seamus Murphy, entitled The Hollow of The Hand. To create the book, PJ Harvey and Seamus Murphy made several journeys to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington, D.C. Their experiences were documented in Murphy's film A Dog Called Money, which was released in UK cinemas and online on 8 November 2019. Seamus Murphy had previously worked with PJ Harvey to create 12 Short Films for Let England Shake.
Personal life
Harvey rejects the notion that her song lyrics are autobiographical, telling The Times in 1998: "the tortured artist myth is rampant. People paint me as some kind of black witchcraft-practising devil from hell, that I have to be twisted and dark to do what I am doing. It's a load of rubbish". What is more, she later told Spin: "some critics have taken my writing so literally to the point that they'll listen to 'Down by the Water' and believe I have actually given birth to a child and drowned her."
In the early 1990s, Harvey was romantically involved with drummer and photographer Joe Dilworth. From 1996 to 1997, following their musical collaborations, Harvey had a relationship with Nick Cave, and their subsequent break-up influenced Cave's follow-up studio album The Boatman's Call (1997), with songs such as "Into My Arms", "West Country Girl" and "Black Hair" being written specifically about her.
Harvey has one older brother, Saul, and four nephews through him. She expressed a fondness for children in 1995 and stated that she would love to have them, saying: "I wouldn't consider it unless I was married. I would have to meet someone that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. That's the only person who I would want to be the father of my children. Maybe that will never happen. I obviously see it in a very rational way but I'd love to have children."
Harvey has encountered widespread opposition to a comment made in favour of fox hunting in a 1998 NME magazine feature, which reported Harvey saying she was not opposed to fox hunting and that, "Seeing the hunt out on the fields is just so natural to me."
Harvey was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to music.
Discography
Dry (1992)
Rid of Me (1993)
To Bring You My Love (1995)
Is This Desire? (1998)
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000)
Uh Huh Her (2004)
White Chalk (2007)
Let England Shake (2011)
The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016)
Personnel
Current members
Polly Harvey – vocals, saxophone, guitar, autoharp, piano, organ, keyboards, violin, cello, vibraphone, marimba, bells & chimes, percussion, djembe, bass, e-bow, melodica, zither, harmonica, harp, cigfiddle (1991–present)
Terry Edwards – backing vocals, saxophones, percussion, keyboards, guitar, flute, bass harmonica, melodica, trumpet (1993 live performance guest, 1997 studio guest, 2014–2017)
James Johnston – backing vocals, keyboards, violin, guitar, organ (1993 live performance guest, 2014–2017)
John Parish – backing vocals, guitar, drums, keyboards, bass, banjo, organ, ukulele, trombone, rhodes, mellotron, xylophone, percussion (1994–1998, 2006–present)
Mick Harvey – backing vocals, bass, keyboards, organ, guitar, drums, harmonium, accordion, bass harmonica, piano, rhodes, xylophone, percussion (1994–2001, 2009–present)
Jean-Marc Butty – backing vocals, drums, percussion (1994–1996, 2006–present)
Alain Johannes – backing vocals, guitars, keyboards, percussion, saxophone (2014–2017)
Kenrick Rowe – backing vocals, percussion (2014–2017)
Enrico Gabrielli – backing vocals, percussion, bass clarinet, swanee whistle, basset clarinet (2014–2017)
Alessandro Stefana – backing vocals, guitars (2014–2017)
Former collaborators
Rob Ellis – drums & percussion, vocals, harmonium, piano, electric piano, tambourine,synthesizer, keyboards, bells, harpsichord, vibraphone (1991–1993, 1996–2005)
Ian Oliver – bass (1991, 2003)
Steve Vaughan – bass (1991–1993)
Nick Bagnall – bass, keyboards (1994–1995)
Joe Gore – guitar, e-bow (1994–1996)
Eric Drew Feldman – piano, keyboards, bass, optigan, mellotron, minimoog, backing vocals (1994–2001, 2006–2009)
Jeremy Hogg – guitar (1996–1998)
Margaret Fiedler – guitar, cello (2000–2001)
Tim Farthing – guitar (2000–2001)
Simon "Dingo" Archer – bass (2004)
Josh Klinghoffer – guitar, drums, percussion (2004)
Jim White – drums (2006–2007)
Carla Azar – drums (2006–2008, studio guest)
Giovanni Ferrario – guitar (2006–2009)
Awards and nominations
List of awards and nominations received by PJ Harvey
References
Further reading
External links
– official site
1969 births
Living people
20th-century British guitarists
20th-century English women singers
20th-century English singers
21st-century British guitarists
21st-century English women singers
21st-century English singers
21st-century multi-instrumentalists
Alternative rock guitarists
Alternative rock pianists
Alternative rock singers
Alumni of Central Saint Martins
Autoharp players
British alternative rock musicians
English contraltos
English women guitarists
English multi-instrumentalists
English rock guitarists
English rock musicians
English women singer-songwriters
Women rock singers
Island Records artists
Ivor Novello Award winners
Members of the Order of the British Empire
NME Awards winners
People from Beaminster
People from Bridport
People from Dorset
Vagrant Records artists
Women punk rock singers
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Julia Görges (born 2 November 1988) is a German former professional tennis player. A former top-ten singles player, she was ranked as high as No. 9 in the world on 20 August 2018, and was ranked inside the top 15 in doubles, peaking at world No. 12 on 22 August 2016. She won seven singles and five doubles titles on the WTA Tour (her biggest title coming at the year-end 2017 WTA Elite Trophy), as well as six singles and six doubles titles on the ITF Circuit.
Görges turned professional in 2005, and first broke into the world's top 100 in June 2008. Prior to 2018, her best singles result in a Grand Slam tournament was reaching the fourth round five times. She broke into the top ten for the first time in February 2018, before going on to reach the semifinals at the 2018 Wimbledon Championships. She was also a two-time semifinalist in women's doubles at the Australian Open, and reached the finals in mixed doubles with Nenad Zimonjić at the 2014 French Open.
She announced her retirement from professional tennis on 21 October 2020, two weeks before her 32nd birthday.
Personal life
Julia Görges was born in Bad Oldesloe to Klaus and Inge Görges, both of whom work in insurance. She has one elder maternal half-sister named Maike, who also works in insurance. She attended the Klaus-Groth-Schule and Theodor-Mommsen-Schule in Bad Oldesloe from 1995 to 2005, and completed the Mittlere Reife (middle-school diploma).
She began playing tennis around the age of five. Her tennis idol growing up was Martina Hingis, and she is also a fan of Roger Federer. She was coached by Sascha Nensel, former coach of fellow German player Nicolas Kiefer, until 2015. She preferred hard and grass courts, and her favorite tournament was the Australian Open.
Career
2005–2008
In 2005, she began her career on the ITF Women's Circuit, playing in seven tournaments and losing in the first round in five of them. In 2006 and 2007 she continued to play mostly ITF tournaments. In 2006, she won the Wahlstedt and Bielefeld tournaments. In 2007, she won tournaments in Antalya and Bucharest and made her first WTA Tour main draw appearances, the highlight of which was a semifinal in Stockholm, where she lost to Vera Dushevina in three sets. Görges made her Grand Slam main draw debut at the US Open, losing to Justine Henin in the first round in straight sets. In 2008, Görges continued to play in a mix of ITF and WTA events. Her best performances were reaching the semifinals of the Slovenia Open, where she lost to Anabel Medina Garrigues, and a quarterfinal-loss to Olga Govortsova in the Cellular South Cup.
She made her top-100 debut in the rankings after the French Open. She won her first Grand Slam main-draw match at Wimbledon, where she upset the 23rd seed Katarina Srebotnik in a three-hour, 41-minute first-round match. However, she bowed out in the second round to Marina Erakovic, in straight sets.
2009: Consistent top-100 ranking
In 2009, Görges began to play in WTA Tour events more regularly. It was the first season that she played in the main draw of all four Grand Slam tournaments. She began her season at the Brisbane International, where she lost in qualifying to Anna-Lena Grönefeld.
Görges competed at the Australian Open, the Open GdF Suez, and the Warsaw Open, losing before the third round in each. She retired in the first round of the French Open in a match against Iveta Benešová due to heat exhaustion.
Görges reached the third round of the Birmingham Classic, falling to Urszula Radwańska. She went on to play against Jelena Janković in the first round of Wimbledon, losing in straight sets. She lost prior to the third round at the Slovenia Open, the İstanbul Cup, and the US Open, where she faced Svetlana Kuznetsova.
At the Bell Challenge, she managed to reach the semifinals, before losing to Lucie Šafářová. She was defeated by Raluca Olaru in the second round of the Linz Open.
2010: First WTA title
Görges started the 2010 season at the Auckland Open, losing in the first round to Yanina Wickmayer. She went on to play at the Australian Open, where she beat Tamira Paszek, but then lost to Caroline Wozniacki in the second round.
Görges reached the quarterfinals of Strasbourg, losing to Maria Sharapova. Following a second round loss at the French Open and a first round loss at Wimbledon, she reached the semifinals of Palermo, losing to Flavia Pennetta.
At the Gastein Ladies, Görges won her first career WTA singles title by defeating Timea Bacsinszky in the final in straight sets. She made her top-50 debut in the rankings afterward. At the Danish Open, she reached the quarterfinals, but was unable to take advantage of a 5–3 third-set lead over the top seed Wozniacki, eventually falling in a tiebreak.
Görges defeated Romina Oprandi in the first round of the US Open, before falling to the 15th seed Wickmayer in the second round. At the Japan Open, she scored her first win over a former No. 1 player by defeating Dinara Safina in the first round. In the second, she defeated the fourth seed Samantha Stosur for her first win over a current top-10 player, before losing to CoCo Vandeweghe in the quarterfinals.
At Linz, she reached the quarterfinals, but fell to the eventual champion Ana Ivanovic. In her final tournament of the season, the Luxembourg Open, she won a quarterfinal rematch with Ivanovic, defeating her in straight sets. She eventually reached her second WTA career final, losing to Roberta Vinci.
2011: Second career title, breakthrough into top 25
Beginning her season at the Auckland Open, Görges lost in the semifinals to the eventual champion Gréta Arn. In the second round of the Australian Open, she upset the No. 20 seed Kaia Kanepi. Her third-round match against the 2008 champion Maria Sharapova was a three-set battle, which Görges finally lost. This marked her best performance in a Grand Slam tournament, and she was rewarded by achieving a career-high No. 34 singles ranking on 31 January 2011.
In February, she helped Germany defeat Slovenia in the Fed Cup competition by clinching the tie with a straight-sets win over Maša Zec Peškirič, her first win in the Fed Cup. Switching to the hard court, she then lost in the first round of Monterrey to Ksenia Pervak, and then continued to struggle at Indian Wells and Miami, losing in the second and first rounds respectively. At the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, however, she made a quarterfinal appearance on the green clay, losing to Elena Vesnina in three sets.
In the Fed Cup in Stuttgart, Görges won a rubber for Germany against Melanie Oudin, who had defeated her in Miami. Staying in Stuttgart for the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, she won her first Premier-level tournament and second WTA tournament, upsetting Samantha Stosur and benefitting from a retirement by Victoria Azarenka. In the final, Görges scored the biggest win of her career by defeating world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki in two sets, to become the first German to win the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix since Anke Huber in 1994.
Less than two weeks after winning in Stuttgart, Görges defeated Wozniacki once again at the Madrid Open. She reached the semifinals, where she lost to Azarenka.
Görges was the 17th seed at the French Open, but fell to the 11th seed Marion Bartoli in three sets in the third round.
After a first round exit to Ana Ivanovic at the Aegon International, she reached the third round of Wimbledon where she fell to the 24th seed Dominika Cibulková in three sets.
Görges failed to advance past the second round at Bad Gastein, Stanford, Carlsbad, Toronto, Cincinnati or Dallas. As the 24th seed at the US Open, she fell to the 13th seed Peng Shuai in two close sets in the third round.
Taking part in the Asian part of the WTA tour, she fell in the quarterfinals of the Korea Open, the third round of the Pan Pacific Open, and the first round of the China Open. She finished her 2011 season with a semifinal loss to Azarenka at the Luxembourg Open. She finished the year ranked 21st, accumulating a 38–25 singles record and a 22–18 doubles record.
2012: Top-20 ranking, consistent form
Seeded fifth at the Auckland Open, she defeated the defending champion Gréta Arn, before falling to her compatriot Angelique Kerber in straight sets. Görges experienced more success in doubles, reaching the final with Flavia Pennetta before falling to the Czech duo of Andrea Hlaváčková and Lucie Hradecká in a third-set super tiebreak. After retiring in the first round of the Sydney International against Jelena Janković, she achieved her best Australian Open performance to date by reaching the fourth round. Görges defeated Polona Hercog, Eleni Daniilidou, and Romina Oprandi, before being dominated by the eighth seed Agnieszka Radwańska. Playing in the Fed Cup for Germany, she lost to Petra Kvitová in an extremely tight three-setter. Partnering Anna-Lena Grönefeld, she lost to Iveta Benešová and Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová as the Czech Republic won the tie 4–1.
Ranked 21st and seeded sixth, she reached the quarterfinals of the Open GdF Suez, falling to Klára Zakopalová in three sets. Görges then lost in the second round in Qatar to Varvara Lepchenko, before reaching the final in Dubai. She defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova, Casey Dellacqua and Daniela Hantuchová, scored a two-set win over the third seed Caroline Wozniacki, but then fell to Agnieszka Radwańska again. Her good result at Dubai helped her to achieve a career-high ranking of 15.
Seeded 14th at the Indian Wells Open, she advanced to the fourth round in straight sets, before becoming another victim of Azarenka. After receiving another bye into the second round in Miami, Görges was defeated by the four-time Grand Slam champion Kim Clijsters.
At Roland Garros, Görges was seeded 25th. She reached the third round, beating Lucie Hradecká and Heather Watson along the way. She lost in the third round to Arantxa Rus, ending the match with two double faults. At the end of the third set Görges complained about the light, which was dismissed by the head supervisor. After this she asked for a medical time-out and asked again to suspend the match, which again was denied by the umpire. In the women's doubles, she lost in the first round with her partner Samantha Stosur.
She was the No. 1 seed in Bad Gastein but lost in three sets to the Dutch qualifier Richèl Hogenkamp, ranked 211, who won her first WTA match. At the same tournament, she won the doubles competition, partnering the American Jill Craybas. In the final they defeated Grönefeld and Petra Martić.
At Wimbledon she lost in the third round to Ana Ivanovic, after defeating Shahar Pe'er and Anastasiya Yakimova in the first two rounds. In Palermo, Görges was defeated in the quarterfinals by Záhlavová-Strýcová. In the second round of the Swedish Open, she lost to the eventual champion Hercog in straight sets.
At the London Olympics, Görges surprisingly defeated second seed Agnieszka Radwańska in the first round. She also beat Lepchenko in round two, but in the third round lost to Maria Kirilenko in straight sets. In the women's doubles, she teamed with Grönefeld, and reached the second round.
In August she lost in the first round at Montreal and reached the second round in Cincinnati. At the US Open she lost in the first round to Kristýna Plíšková. In September she lost in the first round in Seoul. In Tokyo she defeated Monica Niculescu, but lost to Marion Bartoli in the second round.
At the China Open in Beijing, she defeated Vania King and eighth seed Stosur. In the third round, she again lost to the ninth seed Bartoli. She then played a fairly successful tournament in Linz, reaching the finals of both singles and doubles. In the singles final she lost to Azarenka, the world No. 1. In doubles she played alongside Záhlavová-Strýcová and they were defeated by another German-Czech pair, Grönefeld and Květa Peschke. In Luxembourg, Görges reached the second round, where she lost to Niculescu, who went on to be defeated in the final by Venus Williams. She ended 2012 ranked as the world No. 18.
2013: Loss of form
Görges began her season at the Auckland Open. Seeded second, she lost in the second round to Johanna Larsson. In doubles, she and her partner, Yaroslava Shvedova, reached the final where they lost to Cara Black/Anastasia Rodionova. At the Sydney International, Görges was defeated in the first round by qualifier Svetlana Kuznetsova. Seeded eighteenth at the Australian Open, Görges advanced to the fourth round after wins over Vera Dushevina, Romina Oprandi, and Jie Zheng. She lost in her fourth-round match to sixth seed and eventual finalist, Li Na.
Seeded seventh at the Open GdF Suez, Görges was stunned in the first round by French wildcard Kristina Mladenovic. During the Fed Cup tie against France, Görges won both her matches defeating Kristina Mladenovic and Pauline Parmentier. Germany won 3–1 over France. At the Dubai Championships, Görges lost in the first round to fifth seed and eventual finalist Sara Errani. In March, Görges played at the Indian Wells Open. As the 21st seed, she received a first-round bye. She defeated Sofia Arvidsson in the second round. She lost her third-round match to tenth seed Nadia Petrova. At the Miami Open, Görges was the 24th seed, and she received a first-round bye. She was defeated in the second round by Ajla Tomljanović.
Görges began her clay-court season at the Family Circle Cup. Seeded tenth, she reached the third round after wins over Yulia Putintseva and Olga Govortsova. She lost her third-round match to Stefanie Vögele. Seeded fourth at the first edition of the Katowice Open, Görges retired during her first-round match against qualifier Jill Craybas due to dizziness. At the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, Görges was defeated in the second round by fifth seed Petra Kvitová. Seeded eighth at the Portugal Open, Görges suffered a first-round loss at the hands of Monica Puig.
In the Madrid Open, Görges defeated Bojana Jovanovski in round one but withdrew from her second-round match against Varvara Lepchenko because of an infection. In Rome, Görges won her first-round match against Andrea Hlaváčková before she lost to the third seed Victoria Azarenka. In Brussels she reached the second round, after defeating CoCo Vandeweghe, but retired the match against Romina Oprandi due to a right wrist injury.
At Roland Garros, she lost in the first round to Zuzana Kučová. She reached the second round in Nuremberg, losing to Andrea Petkovic. This result was followed by a series of first-round losses: against Mariana Duque at Wimbledon, against Olga Govortsova in Stanford, against Sesil Karatantcheva in Carlsbad, against Roberta Vinci in Toronto and against Magdaléna Rybáriková in Cincinnati.
She was more successful in doubles during this part of season. Alongside Darija Jurak, she reached the final in Stanford, where they lost to the American pair Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears. In Cincinnati she paired with Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová and they lost in the semifinals to the other Czech-German pairing of Grönefeld and Peschke. In New Haven, Görges won her first-round match against Bojana Jovanovski, but lost in the second round to the sixth seed Sloane Stephens. At the US Open she lost to the 21-year-old American Christina McHale in the first round.
Görges then participated in Seoul where she was the sixth seed. She defeated Misaki Doi before losing to Irina-Camelia Begu in the second round. She lost her openers in her final three tournaments of 2013; against Sorana Cîrstea in Tokyo, against Kaia Kanepi in Beijing and against the qualifier Camila Giorgi in Linz. She ended the year at No. 73.
2014: Out of top 100, downfall
To start the year, Görges played the Auckland Open, making it to the second round before losing to Sachie Ishizu in three sets. In Sydney, Görges retired in the final round of qualifying but was awarded a lucky loser spot in the main draw, where she lost to Caroline Wozniacki. At the Australian Open, Görges upset seventh seed Sara Errani in the first round, but lost to Lauren Davis in round two. In Pattaya, Görges reached the semifinals, losing to Karolína Plíšková. Having fallen out of the top 100 for one week, her success in Pattaya moved her back to world No. 88.
The following week, Görges competed in Acapulco where she defeated the Mexican wildcard Marcela Zacarías in the first round before losing to Kaia Kanepi in three sets. She reached the second round at Indian Wells, where she lost to Maria Sharapova. She did not qualify for the Miami Open and lost to Virginie Razzano in the first round at the Family Circle Cup. In Stuttgart, she defeated Sorana Cîrstea before falling to Ana Ivanovic in three sets. Then she qualified for the Madrid Open, but lost her opener to fourth seed Simona Halep. She did not qualify for Rome but managed to reach the quarterfinals at Strasbourg the week before the French Open. She defeated the top seed Sloane Stephens and Lauren Davis, but lost to Madison Keys.
At the French Open, Görges lost in the second round to Eugenie Bouchard of Canada in three sets. Partnering Anna-Lena Grönefeld in the doubles, she lost in the first round to the unseeded pair Dominika Cibulková and Kirsten Flipkens. However, in the mixed doubles partnering Nenad Zimonjić, Görges had a more successful run, reaching her first Grand Slam final. The German-Serbian pair lost to the unseeded Grönefeld and Jean-Julien Rojer in three sets.
At Wimbledon, Görges lost in the first round to the eventual semifinalist Lucie Šafářová in two tie-breaks. In the doubles event, she partnered her fellow German, Grönefeld. The pair fell in the quarterfinals to Petkovic and Rybáriková. The following week, she competed at the Gastein Ladies where she lost to Stefanie Vögele in the first round. At the Swedish Open, Görges defeated the seventh seed María Teresa Torró Flor in the first round to book a second round clash with another Spaniard, Sílvia Soler Espinosa, losing in three sets. In doubles, Görges was the top seed alongside Katarzyna Piter, but they could only make the quarterfinals, losing to the British pairing of Jocelyn Rae and Anna Smith.
At the US Open in New York, Görges fought a spirited first round match against the 11th-seeded Flavia Pennetta, losing in a three-setter. She then competed at the Coupe Banque Nationale in Québec where she was seeded fifth. She reached the quarterfinals, after defeating Stéphanie Dubois and Melanie Oudin. She then defeated Andrea Hlaváčková to face Mirjana Lučić-Baroni in the last four, but lost to the eventual tournament champion. Partnering Hlaváčková in the doubles, she made it to the final, but lost in straight sets to Lucie Hradecká and Lučić-Baroni.
2015: Australian Open doubles semifinal
Görges reached the quarterfinals in Auckland, where she lost to the top seed Caroline Wozniacki. At the Australian Open she defeated Bencic, Koukalová and Hradecká, before losing in the fourth round to Ekaterina Makarova. She was also successful in the doubles, where together with Anna-Lena Grönefeld, she reached the semifinals.
Görges won a dead rubber playing in the doubles alongside Sabine Lisicki in the Fed Cup match against Australia. In March, she reached the quarterfinals in Kuala Lumpur where she lost to Alexandra Dulgheru in straight sets. In April, Görges played for Germany in the Fed Cup semifinals. She lost her singles match against Svetlana Kuznetsova and Germany lost to Russia 3–2.
At the French Open, Görges battled past CoCo Vandeweghe in three sets in the first round, before scoring an upset against the 5th seed Wozniacki in the second round in straight sets. She defeated Irina Falconi before losing to Sara Errani in round four. In the doubles she played alongside Barbora Krejčíková. They lost in the first round to Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza.
2016: Two Grand Slam doubles semifinals
Görges started the new season by reaching the final in Auckland, where she lost to Sloane Stephens. At the Australian Open, she defeated Andreea Mitu before losing in straight sets to her doubles partner, the ninth seed Karolína Plíšková. In the doubles, Görges and Karolína Plíšková reached the semifinals, where they lost to the top seeds and eventual winners, Hingis and Mirza.
Görges received a wildcard in Dubai, where she defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova, losing only a single game. In the second round she lost to Barbora Strýcová. In doubles she partnered Tímea Babos. They lost to the French pair, Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic, in the semifinals. In Doha Görges faced again Kuznetsova in the first round, and this time she lost. Together with Babos she reached quarterfinals in the doubles, where they lost to the eventual winners, Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan.
In Indian Wells, Görges lost in the first round to Camila Giorgi. In the doubles she played alongside Karolína Plíšková. They lost in the final to Mattek-Sands and CoCo Vandeweghe. In Miami, Görges defeated Nao Hibino and Sam Stosur before losing to Simona Halep in third round.
Görges reached the semifinals in Nürnberg, where she lost to the eventual champion Kiki Bertens.
At the French Open Görges defeated Johanna Konta in the first round, before losing to Monica Puig in the second round. In the doubles she again played alongside Karolína Plíšková and they lost in the third round to the eventual runners-up Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina. At Wimbledon, Görges lost in the first round to Yaroslava Shvedova. In the doubles, Görges and Plíšková reached the semifinals, where they lost to the Williams sisters.
Görges reached the semifinals in Båstad, losing to the eventual winner Laura Siegemund. At the US Open, Görges defeated Yanina Wickmayer before losing to Venus Williams in the second round. Görges reached the semifinals of the Kremlin Cup, where she lost Daria Gavrilova. She played in the doubles draw at the 2016 WTA Finals, partnering Karolína Plíšková, but lost in the first match against Garcia/Mladenovic.
2017: Late career rapid rise
Görges started the 2017 season in Auckland, defeating the third seed and former world No. 1, Caroline Wozniacki before losing in the semifinals to Ana Konjuh.
At the Australian Open she won her opening match against Kateřina Siniaková but then lost to Jelena Janković. At the French Open, Görges lost her opening match in a very tight third set to the American Madison Brengle. Preparing for Wimbledon, Görges reached her first final on grass at the Mallorca Open. She lost to the second seed Anastasija Sevastova. At Wimbledon, she lost in three sets to Lesia Tsurenko. She reached her second final of the year on clay, where she lost to the home favourite Irina-Camelia Begu at the Bucharest Open.
In August, Görges reached her third final of the year at the Washington Open, where she lost to Makarova. A week later, at Cincinnati she knocked out the world No. 10, Agnieszka Radwanska, in the first round and the world No. 5, Elina Svitolina, in the third round, but lost to Sloane Stephens in two sets.
Görges was seeded 30th at the US Open. She defeated her compatriot Annika Beck in the first round, Zheng Saisai in the second and Aleksandra Krunić in the third to reach the fourth round for the first time. Görges could not avenge her loss against Stephens, and lost in three sets.
In October, Görges won the Kremlin Cup by defeating Daria Kasatkina in the final. It was her first singles title since 2011.
The win in Moscow propelled her back into the top 20, and as a result guaranteed her qualification for the WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai. Görges was drawn into the Azalea Group, alongside the top-seeded Kristina Mladenovic and the Wimbledon semifinalist Magdaléna Rybáriková. She defeated them both in straight sets to advance to the semifinal stage, where she faced Anastasija Sevastova, whom she defeated in straight sets as well. She then defeated CoCo Vandeweghe to win the biggest title of her career. She finished the year with a nine-match winning streak and a career-high ranking of 14.
2018: Top 10 debut, Wimbledon semifinal, two WTA titles
Entering 2018 with the confidence and form of the last year, Görges won the Auckland Open. This gave her back to back WTA titles after a previous drought of six years, and extended her winning run to 14 matches, only two of which went to the third set.
At the Australian Open, she lost in the second round to Alizé Cornet. Görges then played in St. Petersburg, where she lost in the semifinals to Petra Kvitová. Despite the loss, Görges made her top 10 debut following the tournament, as Kristina Mladenovic failed to defend the title.
In Doha, she reached the quarterfinals but retired in the match against Kvitová during the second set because of a hip injury.
In April, she reached final of Premier tournament in Charleston, defeating Naomi Osaka, Daria Kasatkina and Anastasija Sevastova. In the final she lost to Kiki Bertens.
Görges played for Germany in Fed Cup semifinals against Czech Republic. She lost her first rubber against Petra Kvitová. Görges then defeated Karolína Plíšková, but this was the only point won by German team and Czech Republic advanced to the final.
At the French Open, she played as the 11th seed. She defeated Dominika Cibulková and Alison Van Uytvanck before losing to Serena Williams in the third round.
She started the grass-court season in Birmingham, where she lost in the quarterfinals to the defending champion Petra Kvitová. In Eastbourne, Görges received bye in the first round and in the second round she lost to Aryna Sabalenka.
At Wimbledon, Görges reached her first Grand Slam semifinal, defeating Monica Puig, Vera Lapko, Barbora Strýcová, Donna Vekić and Kiki Bertens en route. She lost in the semifinal to Serena Williams.
In New Haven, she reached the semifinals.
In October, she won her sixth career singles title at the Luxembourg Open, defeating Belinda Bencic in the final.
2019: Defending Auckland Open title
Görges won her second Auckland Open title by beating Canadian Bianca Andreescu in the final. She then headed to Melbourne where, as 14th seed, she was beaten in the first round of the Australian Open by Danielle Collins.
In June, Görges reached the final in Birmingham where she lost to Ashleigh Barty who became the new No. 1 after this tournament. At Wimbledon, Görges defeated Elena-Gabriela Ruse and Varvara Flink before losing in the third round to Serena Williams, in a rematch of the previous year's semifinal. At the US Open, Görges defeated Natalia Vikhlyantseva, Francesca Di Lorenzo, and Kiki Bertens to reach the fourth round, where she lost to Donna Vekić, despite having a match point in the second set.
Görges attempted to defend her title at Luxembourg, and reached the final after defeating Misaki Doi, Sorana Cîrstea, Monica Puig, and Elena Rybakina. However, she fell to an in form Jeļena Ostapenko in the final in straight sets.
2020: Lowest ranking since 2016, end of career
Görges defeated Greetje Minnen and Jil Teichmann to reach the quarterfinals in her Auckland Open title defence, but she lost to Caroline Wozniacki in the quarterfinals in straight sets. Following this loss, she fell to No. 38. She partnered Caroline Garcia in doubles, and reached the quarterfinals, where they fell to eventual champions Asia Muhammad and Taylor Townsend. At Adelaide, she defeated Priscilla Hon before falling to Belinda Bencic in two tight sets. At Melbourne, she defeated Viktória Kužmová and 13th seed Petra Martić, before being defeated by Alison Riske in three sets. Following the Australian Open, Görges' ranking rose to No. 31. After failing to qualify for Dubai, losing to Sorana Cîrstea in the second qualifying round, Görges participated in Doha, where she lost in the first round to Maria Sakkari.
Görges opted to withdraw from the US Open season, citing safety concerns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her first tournament following the suspension of the WTA Tour was at Rome, where she lost to Danka Kovinić in the first round, winning just one game. She next participated at the French Open, where she defeated Riske in the first round, before losing to Laura Siegemund in the second round. Following these tournaments, Görges' ranking fell to No. 45, her lowest ranking since 2016. On 21 October, Görges announced her immediate retirement from the tour on her website.
Career statistics
Grand Slam singles performance timeline
References
External links
1988 births
Living people
People from Bad Oldesloe
German female tennis players
Tennis players at the 2012 Summer Olympics
Olympic tennis players of Germany
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Cartoon Network and LGBT representation concerns representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender characters on American cable TV channel, Cartoon Network, which launched in 1992, and Cartoon Network's American adult-oriented nighttime programming block, Adult Swim which was founded in 2001.
In the 2010s, Cartoon Network featured multiple cartoons whose main characters expressed their identity and were featured in LGBT-focused storylines. These characters include Garnet, Pearl, and Princess Bubblegum. The network hosted shows which were said to be "strong champions for LGBT representation," such as Adventure Time and Steven Universe. This representation was difficult to achieve, as Rebecca Sugar, the creator of Steven Universe, was told by executives that the inclusion of a central queer romance could have ended her show.
The role of Cartoon Network shows in LGBTQ representation would continue in the 2020s, with the airing of Steven Universe Future on the network and Adventure Time: Distant Lands streaming on HBO Max, along with characters in DC Super Hero Girls. Other series, like OK K.O.!: Let's Be Heroes and Craig of the Creek would have LGBTQ characters as well. In December 2020, Amy Friedman, head of programming for Cartoon Network and HBO Max Kids & Family, stated that they are looking "at ourselves across the inclusion and equity spectrum," including the LGBTQ+ community, to evaluate projects in production, development, and post-greenlighting.
Comparison to other networks
Some reviewers argue that, when Disney and Cartoon Network are compared, it is "easy to see who actually cares about LGBT representation," noting that for shows on Cartoon Network, "LGBT characters aren't centered around their sexuality."
Lesbian characters
Many Cartoon Network series had lesbian characters over the years. This included Steven Universe, Clarence, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, We Bare Bears, Victor and Valentino, DC Super Hero Girls, Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Craig of the Creek and Elliott from Earth. There were also lesbian characters in Adult Swim series like Moral Orel.
Steven Universe
Some of the most prominent lesbian characters in Steven Universe were Ruby and Sapphire, who fuse as Garnet. This was first shown in the Season 1 finale, "Jail Break" which aired on March 12, 2015. Some critics called the episode "one of the queerest episodes of a children's cartoon in the history of television" as it involved Ruby and Sapphire, the two Gem beings, celebrating their relationship. In their 2015 report, GLAAD stated that the show reflected the "diversity of the real world," noting that one of the show's protagonists, Garnet, is "the physical form of two female-presenting Gem beings who are in love" On January 4, the episode "The Answer" aired, focusing on how the romantic relationship between Ruby and Sapphire, who were in a permafusion named Garnet (an embodiment of their love), developed, leading some to say the show has "heavy queer undertones." "The Answer," an episode depicting the romantic meeting of two female characters, Ruby and Sapphire, earned the show its second Emmy nomination, one of the six for the show. In the summer of 2018, Steven Universe would make headlines with a gay wedding between two characters: Ruby and Sapphire, challenging Cartoon Network's history of "not overtly depicting same-sex marriage" as Sugar struggled to get any LGBTQ+ representation on the show, with the network ultimately accepting her reasoning.
The episode, "Reunited," which aired on July 6, which she and the crew had worked on for years, was praised as an example of the network's frank portrayal of "sexuality and gender identity in children's programming," and it was positively received by the LGBTQ+ community and fans. This episode made Steven Universe the first kid's show on U.S. television to feature a lesbian wedding. The creator of Gravity Falls, Alex Hirsch, believed that because of this episode, it meant that Sugar was moving everyone in kid's programming forward in terms of LGBTQ+ representation. ND Stevenson praised the episode as "bold and courageous," serving as a moment which "knocked down so many walls" for other storytellers.
Other lesbian characters in the series included Pearl, who had feelings for Rose Quartz, the mother of the series protagonist, and Bismuth. In the latter case, Bismuth was implied to have a crush on Pearl in the Steven Universe Future episode "Bismuth Casual."
OK K.O.!
Red Action in OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes is a lesbian character. She later entered a relationship with Enid, and kissed her in the episode "Red Action 3: Grudgement Day". It was later confirmed that Yellow was possibly Red's ex-girlfriend. On the day of the series finale, Jones-Quartey called Enid and Red a "committed couple," and saying their relationship developed "very naturally."
Some reviewers stated that Enid has possible romantic feelings toward Elodie. Jones-Quartey later said that Red Action and Enid "run a dojo together and kiss."
Craig of the Creek
Two lesbian characters were confirmed in Craig of the Creek in April 2018. In their debut episode, "The Curse," Tabitha refuses to go to college in favor of spending time with Courtney, who blushes, and they hold hands at the conclusion of the episode. In "The Haunted Dollhouse", they have feelings for each other, which is confirmed, and they kiss.
J.P.'s openly lesbian older sister, in the episode "Jextra Perrestrial" is shown to be in a relationship with a girl named Kat. Laura is voiced by openly lesbian comedian Fortune Feimster. In the episode "Cousin of the Creek", Jasmine tells her cousin "I am texting my girlfriend, mind your business."
The season 4 episode "Fire and Ice" focuses on Kelsey and Stacks' relationship as they confessed their love to each other.
Final Space
In the Final Space episode, "Forgiveness," on May 8, 2021, Ash Graven meets a genderless being named Evra, voiced by Jasmin Savoy Brown. Evra becomes Ash's friend and helps her "take her anger out," with both sitting and watching a formation of lights like the aurora borealis together. Her relationship with Evra makes clear her sexual orientation as a lesbian woman, in addition to being angry at a man named Jordan Hammerstein, in the episode "Arachnitects," for rejecting her at prom. Rogers, in a podcast about the episode "Forgiveness" that David Sacks, who wrote the episode, came from a place of "two souls connecting to each other" and noted that if the show had fourth season, they would have expand on the relationship between Evra and Ash.
However, the series, which aired on Adult Swim, was cancelled on September 10, 2021, before it could ever happen. One reviewer argued that having Ash as a lesbian character was "one of the best representations of LGBTQ characters in mature animation for some time," as shown in the episode "Forgiveness," and saying she is a lesbian, not "ambiguously bi." The reviewer also noted that Ash, even as an antagonist, does not "fulfill common stereotypes or tropes," comparing her experience to the manipulation of Cassandra in the final season of Tangled by Zhan Tiri, saying both are complex characters who experience trauma and have "troubled pasts," with Invictus exploiting Ash's Trauma triggers. The review ends by noting Ash's development through the series, with Evra helping her grow, and hoping the series would "move forward mature animation in a better and more inclusive direction" if there was another season.
Other series
Lesbian characters appear in series like Cow and Chicken, Moral Orel, Clarence, Victor and Valentino, DC Super Hero Girls, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, and Elliott from Earth.
The banned Cow and Chicken episode "Buffalo Gals" aired on February 20, 1998. It only aired once, as frequent complaints prevented future airings. Complaints were made about its overt innuendos, frequent double entendres, and lesbian stereotypes. It no longer airs on television and has been replaced in future reruns with "Orthodontic Police."
A lesbian character appeared in Moral Orel, which aired on Adult Swim from December 13, 2005 to December 18, 2008. Stephanie Foamwire-Putty is a lesbian character in Moral Orel who's revealed to have fallen in unrequited love with her old high school best friend, Kim Latchkey.
In The Venture Bros., Virginia "Ginnie" Dunne, who is Dr. Quymn's bodyguard, is very masculine, and a reported "man-hater.". In the episode "Dr. Quymn, Medicine Woman," she is shown to be a lesbian who is trying to convert Dr. Quymn.
In the episode "Jeff Wins" of Clarence, on December 4, 2014, EJ Randell and Sue Randell were introduced as Jeff's mothers.
The series Victor and Valentino, which began in March 2019, features Xochi Jalapeño, a lesbian character. Xochi is Don Jalapeño's rebellious teenage daughter who sometimes babysits the protagonists, has a crush on her friend, Amabel as shown in the episodes "Band for Life," "Escaramuza," and "Carmelita."
The DC Super Hero Girls episode #HouseGuest, on April 17, 2020, featured the two mothers of Jessica Cruz, also known as Green Lantern. When asked about this by Taimur Gur of ComicsBeat, series creator Lauren Faust said that everyone was "on board with this idea" and that she was glad it was approved.
Ben 10 co-creator Duncan Rouleau confirmed Rojo is a lesbian on April 2020 and was in a relationship with fellow gang member Azul.
Tony Cervone, a producer of Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated stated, in July 2020, that Velma is a lesbian while James Gunn, who wrote the screenplays of Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, she was "explicitly gay." She has feelings for Marcie "Hot Dog Water" Fleach.
In Elliott from Earth, which began in March 2021, the main character Elliott lives with his single mother Frankie. In "Wednesday Part 2", Frankie tells Elliott that "your mother and I" were planning to call him Maureen when they thought he was a girl, revealing that she is a lesbian.
Gay characters
Some Cartoon Network series have been confirmed to include gay characters. This includes DreamWorks Dragons, Clarence, Steven Universe, Summer Camp Island, Craig of the Creek, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes and Young Justice. Adult Swim shows like Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Mission Hill, The Venture Bros., and Mike Tyson Mysteries also featured gay characters.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast, which aired on Cartoon Network (1994-1999; 2001); Adult Swim (2001-2004), and GameTap (2006-2008), included a gay character. On December 25, 1994, Lokar, a locust alien and member of the Council of Doom, was introduced in the Space Ghost Coast to Coast Christmas special A Space Ghost Christmas. Supplementary material for the series had Lokar referred to himself as a Confirmed bachelor while an article on the official Cartoon Network website featured a reference to a slang word for gay sex. His sexuality was confirmed in audio commentaries for the Space Ghost Coast to Coast Volume 2 DVD and it was revealed that Lokar died at some point during the series. However this was eventually contradicted when Lokar returned in the Season 11 episode "Stephen" in where he is shown to be alive and well.
Mission Hill, which aired on The WB from 1999 to 2000 and Adult Swim in 2002, Gus Duncz and Wally Langford, a gay elderly couple in their late 60s, even winning an award from GLAAD for this representation. In The Venture Bros., which aired on Adult Swim from 2004 to 2018, Colonel Horace Gentleman is always, openly, and proudly gay. However, he has an ex-wife, Mz. Quymn, as indicated in the episode "Dr. Quymn, Medicine Woman," and a former lover, Kiki, shown in the episode "Past Tense," who he lived with at his home in Tangiers, Morocco for years. Also, The Alchemist and Shore Leave were in an on-again, off-again relationship, shown in episodes such as "Fallen Arches." According to the show creators, The Alchemist is gay in a way that is "just incidental" while Shore Leave is a very "openly swishy queer proud guy."
The Oblongs features Biff who is implied to be gay. He was confirmed to be gay in a bonus feature from The Oblongs Complete Series DVD.
On May 18, 1996, Silver Spooner, the sidekick to Barbequor, appeared in an episode of Dexter's Laboratory titled "Dial M for Monkey: Barbequor." Both characters are parodies of Silver Surfer and Galactus, with the episode banned. While some said this was because Silver Spooner was a stereotype of gay men, with complaints to that effect after it aired, others said it had more to do with copyright infringement as the estate of Jack Kirby threatened to sue Cartoon Network over the parody character. The episode was, in later broadcasts, and on its Season 1 DVD (Region 1), replaced with "Dexter's Lab: A Story", an episode from season two.
Time Squad which aired from 2001 to 2003 on Cartoon Network, arguably had a gay character. In 2012, the voice actor of Larry 3000, Mark Hamill, implied that Larry could easily have been interpreted as gay, due to his femininity and presentation as the "gay best friend" to Cleopatra in "Shop like an Egyptian", even though Larry has stated on multiple occasions he dislikes humans in general. However, the show never directly stated his sexuality. Even so, Hamill described Larry 3000 as "fierce" and "flamboyant."
In the August 2005 episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, titled "One Crazy Summoner", it was revealed that Dean Toadblatt and Squidhat, were gay lovers, marrying each other in the episode. One critic noted that while you could call them Cartoon Network's "first gay couple," it was actually Steven Universe, also airing on Cartoon Network, that "broke down representation barriers" years later.
Jean Baptiste Le Ghei and Paul Guaye are inmates and a recurring couple as shown in the Superjail! episode "Superbar" and others. In an interview with the creators of the show, co-creator Christy Karacas called them well-rounded characters, who are a couple, with Paul as more feminine and intelligent than Jean who is "the bad boy."
The first two seasons of DreamWorks Dragons aired on Cartoon Network from 2012 to 2014, and from 2015-2018 aired on Netflix. In February 2019, Gobber, the blacksmith of Berk, Stoick's closest friend, who appears in the films of the How to Train Your Dragon and DreamWorks Dragons: Rescue Riders was confirmed as gay In an episode of The Boondocks, aired in June 2015, many gay characters appeared, including Gangstalicious, a closet homosexual who goes to great lengths to keep his identity as a gay man hidden from the public. Marquess of Queensbury, appeared on Mike Tyson Mysteries, which started on October 27, 2014. Eric Thurm of The A.V. Club argued that Marquess was a gay character and he was based on a man named John Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry.
Spencer Rothbell, a writer, head of storywriting, and voice actor of multiple characters, for the show Clarence, said in October 2014 that they had to change a scene in the episode "Neighborhood Grill", which showed two gay characters after pushback from Cartoon Network executives. According to Rothbell, the original scene showed the two characters kissing on the lips, noting that "originally the guy had flowers and they kissed on the mouth." Later he lamented that the scene in the episode is "better than nothing," adding that "maybe one day the main character can be gay and it won't be a big deal." Despite this step back, there were some moves forward.
A Steven Universe storyboarder stated in 2017 that Harold Smiley and Quentin Frowney were a gay couple which was also confirmed by official artbook released the same year, titled Steven Universe: Art & Origins which showed that episode concept art for "Future Boy Zoltron" indicated that Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowney were in a relationship. In Summer Camp Island, Ghost the Boy, a ghost and Betsy's ex-boyfriend, has two dads Kent and Cole as his parents, introduced in a July 2018 episode. Young Justice, in July 2019, introduced Wyynde, a gay character.
Raj and Shawn in Craig of the Creek, Honeysuckle Rangers from a neighborhood nearby, are implied to have feelings for each other in several episodes. Raj is voiced by openly gay actor Parvesh Cheena. Joff and Nick Army, two recurring heroes, in OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes are a married couple. In the final episode of the series, in September 2019 both have a same-sex wedding. Before the episode aired, Jones-Quartey confirmed Army and Joff as a canon gay couple.
Journalists for Insider said that Eduardo "Ed" Dorado Jr in Young Justice was gay in June 2021. This was confirmed by Greg Weisman in July 2021. In the Elliott from Earth episode "Wednesday Part 4", a male alien mentions his husband.
Transgender characters
In the 1998 Cow and Chicken episode "Who's Afraid of the Dark?", the Dad character tells his wife that adopting the disguised antagonist was the "best idea he's had since becoming a man." This would imply that he is a transgender man who was not assigned male at birth, making Dad the first openly transgender character on Cartoon Network. Trans characters also appeared in Superjail! and The Oblongs. Superjail! included Alice, a hulking and muscular head prison guard of Superjail and a trans woman who regularly engages in sadomasochistic rituals with the prisoners, and rebuffs The Warden's constant advances as shown in episodes like "Jailbot 2.0."
Non-binary characters
In the Cartoon Network series Steven Universe, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, Summer Camp Island, Steven Universe Future, and Craig of the Creek, featured non-binary characters.
Steven Universe introduced a non-binary and intersex character named Stevonnie on January 19, 2015. Stevonnie is a fusion between Steven and Connie debuted in the January 15th episode Alone Together, using they/them pronouns. Rebecca Sugar, the show creator, said that Stevonnie challenges gender norms as a "metaphor for all the terrifying firsts in a first relationship." Later, the show earned a Emmy nomination in 2018 for the episode "Jungle Moon" centered around Stevonnie, a non-binary character.
In OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, Gregg, a minor character, was confirmed as non-binary by the series creator. In Summer Camp Island, Puddle is a non-binary alien who uses they/them pronouns and their husband, Alien King, is the king of their planet. The limited epilogue series, Steven Universe Future began airing on Cartoon Network in late 2019. The series included one-time non-binary characters like Shep, the romantic interest of Sadie.
In December 2018,Transformers: Cyberverse writer Mae Catt confirmed that the character Acid Storm was genderqueer, saying they like to switch between male and female genders.
Craig of the Creek confirmed in December 2019 that the show had a non-binary character named Angel José. Their voice actor, Angel Lorenzana, who also uses they/them pronouns, an agender storyboard artist for the show, confirmed this. In later tweets, they added that their "cartoon self" used they/them before themselves, gave a shout out to the show's crew, and said that while this is a small contribution to LGBTQ+ representation, they hope "fans can take comfort knowing that there's also non-binary people working behind the scenes" on every of the show's episodes. Additionally, there is a non-binary character named Merkid who appears as a mermaid in the episode "Beyond the Creek" and cameos in the episode "In the Key of the Creek."
Bisexual characters
Bisexual characters appeared in Cartoon Network series, such as Adventure Time, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, and Young Justice, and in the Adult Swim series Tuca and Bertie and Moral Orel'''.
The season 2 premiere of Tuca and Bertie, titled Bird Mechanics, in June 2021, confirmed Tuca to be bisexual as she made out with a female bird mechanic. From the episode "Nighttime Friend" on, she tries to get into a serious relationship with a woman named Kara. Kara dumps Tuca in the season 2 finale "The Flood".
In Adventure Time, Marceline the Vampire Queen (Marcy) is a bisexual character. A September 2011 episode "What Was Missing" began hinting at romantic subtext between her and Princess Bubblegum (Bonnie), called "Bubbline" by fans. but some of those behind the show played down the relationship. Some reviewers hoped that "queer cartoon subtext" turns into "a queer cartoon subplot" or even a main plot in the future, and pointed to the Adventure Time Presents Marceline and the Scream Queens comic, created as part of the franchise, as fleshing out this relationship.
In August 2018, Olivia Olson confirmed that Bonnie and Marcy had dated and in the season finale of Adventure Time, "Come Along With Me", Marcy and Bonnie kissed, which confirmed them as a couple. The kiss itself in the episode was not scripted, as series creator Adam Muto admitted, only added after a storyboard artist, Hanna K. Nyström, advocated for it. In an August 2020 interview, Sugar explained that Bonnie and Marcy that both characters were "centuries-old, millenniums-old," with a relationship in the past, which they were unpacking in an apparent way, and noted that she was trying to, when entering the show in 2010, show the "characters actively in a relationship happening in real-time." Before Bonnie, Marcy had an ex-boyfriend named Ash.
In OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, Professor Venomous, a villain has feelings for Lord Boxman, On the day of the show's series finale, show creator Ian Jones-Quartey confirmed Venomous as bisexual, but not non-binary.
In the same series, Enid appeared, a bisexual ninja and witch, with her bisexuality confirmed by Jones-Quartey and Toby Jones. She and Red Action were recognized by GLAAD as a couple, and kissed in one the episode.Young Justice introduced Harper Row in July 2019. She is a bisexual friend to Violet Harper and Fred Bugg.Moral Orel, first released December 2005, had various LGBTQ+ characters. Coach Daniel Stopframe was Orel's bisexual coach as well as Shapey's biological father, Daniel lusts after their father, Clay, and at one point has sex with three women and a dog in episodes like "The Blessed Union."
The creator of Final Space, Olan Rogers, told fans in 2020 that he always saw Clarence as bisexual. Clarence, a recurring character, has an ex-wife, several since-deceased wives, two adopted children (Fox and Ash Graven), is implied to be in love with General Cataloupe, and has unrequited love on Sheryl Goodspeed. One reviewer argued that the death of Clarence was not unique because "over 50 characters have died during the course of the series."
Other LGBTQ characters
There are other LGBTQ characters in Cartoon Network series like Adventure Time, Young Justice, Steven Universe, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, Transformers: Cyberverse, and Adventure Time: Distant Lands.
In Adventure Time, Princess Bubblegum is a queer character. Early episodes hinted at romantic subtext between her and Marceline the Vampire Queen. Some reviewers hoped that "queer cartoon subtext" turns into "a queer cartoon subplot" or even a main plot in the future, and pointed to the Adventure Time Presents Marceline and the Scream Queens comic, created as part of the franchise, as fleshing out this relationship. It was also confirmed that Bonnie and Marcy had dated, and their relationship was confirmed in the season finale of Adventure Time, "Come Along With Me" when both kissed. While Bonnie seems to have dated a male character named Mr. Cream Puff, her exact sexuality, unlike Marcy's, has not been confirmed. As such, reviewers have argued that she is either bisexual, non-binary, queer, lesbian, or a combination of some of the latter, as both live in a world where "sexuality is somewhat fluid." The show also featured agenderfluid character: BMO. The relationship between Marcy and Bonnie was the main focus of the Adventure Time: Distant Lands episode, "Obsidian", Young Justice writer, Greg Weisman, confirmed Marie Logan as lesbian or bisexual in September 2012. In July 2019, Weisman confirmed Kaldur'ahm as polysexual. 2019 also saw the introduction of a genderqueer character, Violet Harper, in the show's third season.
In Steven Universe, Rose Quartz, a pansexual character, was introduced on April 9, 2015. An episode with Pearl and Rose Quartz dancing together in a romantic fashion was censored with a UK Broadcaster, deeming that the song was "too risque," Later in the series, Fluorite, a representation of a polyamorous relationship, appeared and a minor show character, Kiki Pizza, was shown as a pansexual character in the comics, level 2 canon for the show, when she asked out Stevonnie on a date. In March 2020, Peridot, a popular character in the same show, was confirmed by storyboarder Maya Peterson as asexual and aromantic. She said this despite her reservations that she is only a secondary creator on the show, pleasing fans. However, she said that she didn't believe Peridot was autistic. However, before, and after this point, fans had shipped Peridot with various other characters, specifically Lapis Lazuli and Amethyst, with some reviewers seeing Peridot and Lapis in a "close, loving relationship."
Lord Boxman, in OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, is a villain who has feelings for Professor Venomous SP in the entry stands for Steven Pearce On the day of the show's series finale, show creator Ian Jones-Quartey confirmed Boxman as pansexual. In October 2020, Jones-Quartey added that Professor Venomous and Lord Boxman of OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes were married at the end of the series.
Jones-Quartey also said that The Hue Troop, which Red was once part of, are all LGBTQ characters. The same day, Toby Jones, one of the supervising directors, confirmed Radicles "Rad" as genderfluid In June 2021, Insider said that all those in the Hue Troop, Blue Power, Yellow Technique, Green Guts, and Black Strategy, were all lesbians. Bobo was implied to be agender by Jones-Quartey.
In June 2020, the first episode of Adventure Time: Distant Lands series, the name for four hour-long streaming television specials based on Adventure Time, began streaming on HBO Max, and it introduced Y5, an anthropomorphic rabbit and teenage scientist between age 11 and 13 who lives in The Drift. Originally named "Y4", Y5 chooses her new name with BMO's encouragement and eventually becomes the robot's "deputy." Y5 struggles with managing the expectations of her parents (voiced by Tom Kenny and Michelle Wong, respectively), and finds herself forced to disobey them in order to save the Drift—all the while discovering her own identity. Y5—with the titular robot's assistance—helps the citizens of the Drift defeat Hugo, and after their overlord is dethroned, she proposes a new form of social organization based on cooperation that will ideally allow the Drift to flourish. Voice actress Glory Curda later argued that Y5's story has a lot of context and is representative of coming out into your own identity and defining yourself with whatever terms are comfortable for you. Curda, in a Q&A on Reddit, said that after BMO left, Y5 grew and developed into "a leader and trailblazer to help save the drift," and noted that she was a big Adventure Time fan before getting the part. In February 2021 it was announced that Adventure Time: Distant Lands episode "BMO" had won a Kidscreen Award for Best One-Off, Special or TV Movie.
Pansexual characters were implied in Rick and Morty. The season five Rick and Morty episode, "Mort inner Rick Andre," was confirmed that the father of Morty, Jerry Smith, is queer because he, and Beth, his wife, have a threesome with the King of the Ocean, otherwise known as Mr. Nimbus. Jerry has feelings for Mr. Nimbus, and due to the fact he has a wife, it means he is either pansexual or bisexual, with both he and Beth in a "sex-positive place" in their relationship, according to Jerry's voice actor, Chris Parnell. The fact he is queer was already hinted in the episode "Total Rickall." In the Final Space'' episode "The Closer You Get," the character Tribore tells another character, Shannon, that "he is in love with his other half", because his species flips gender twice a year. Ajay Aravind, writing for Screen Rant, calls this "an amazing non-binary bit of the episode". Series creator Olan Rogers later described Tribore as "narcissi-sexual" because he "loves himself a little too much."
See also
Netflix and LGBT representation in animation
LGBT representation in adult animation
LGBT representation in animated web series
List of LGBT-related films by year
Cross-dressing in film and television
List of cross-dressing characters in animated series
List of animated films with LGBT characters
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
2010s animated television series
Animated television series
LGBT portrayals in mass media
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The Global Marshall Plan Initiative views itself as an integrative organizational platform for a "world in balance". Composed of a network of more than 5000 supporters from all levels of society, brought together from politics, economics and civil society, the Initiative is based on five core goals for fair globalization. Through its network-like character, it is organized through even hierarchies and without a centre. Everyone is invited to actively participate and take action with their circles and the accompanying opportunities to implement a World in Balance.
The goal of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative is to establish a framework compatible with sustainability for the global economy – a global Eco-Social Market Economy.
Origins
The idea of a Global Marshall Plan was first published in 1990 by U.S. politician, entrepreneur and environmentalist Al Gore in his book “Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit”. The choice of name deliberately recalls the historical Marshall Plan after the Second World War (officially: European Recovery Program), a symbol for hope, solidarity and peace.
The idea of a Global Marshall Plan was not new but had already been endorsed in the 1990s by personalities from a variety of sectors: Kofi Annan, Al Gore, Hans Küng, Susan George, Mikhail Gorbachov, His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, George Soros, Lutz Wicke, Georg Winter and many others (Global Contract). As early as the beginning of the 1990s an ecological Marshall Plan was established by prominent personalities such as journalist Franz Alt and German Green politician Joscka Fisher. Along with many other supporters, they called for the establishment of an eco-social market economy, 100 billion DM put towards the environment every year and a kerosene tax.
As the world increasingly finds itself in a difficult, unsustainable situation as a result of rapid globalization, both in terms of environmental issues, poverty and unequal distribution, as well as the disproportionate cultural balance, on 16 May 2003 representatives from 16 civil society organizations revived the original idea for a global Marshall Plan as a movement for world peace, sustainability and justice, and at the Frankfurt airport, the Global Marshall Plan initiative was launched. Since the initiative should be organized as a network, i.e. locally and without hierarchies, the coordination of tasks and activities was assigned to different people and institutions: the coordination of content was taken up by Prof. Dr. Franz-Josef Radermacher as Head of FAW/n, politicians, and Josef Riegler, with particular importance on an EU level and the Eco-Social Forum Europe. The coordination, initiation and promotion of supporters’ activities internationally were assigned the Global Contract Foundation and Frithjof Finkbeiner. Due to the enormous positive response and the wide range of activities, this commission was soon transferred to the Global Marshall Plan Foundation.
The long-term goal of the initiative is to establish a global eco-social market economy and alter the current failing global framework to lead to long-lasting peace and sustainability. From the beginning, the founders set themselves the goal of developing the initiative as openly as possible and also of winning over the support of the economy. All actors and parts of the global society should find that in the Global Marshall Plan one-sided organization can constructively be prevented. The initiative aims to provide the greatest possible support to the world to ensure that the plan is continually developed in its substance, quality, implementation and coverage.
In a series of lectures in 2003–4, the initiative was refined further. Eventually the first report on the Global Marshall Plan Initiative (“Global Marshall Plan – A Planetary Contract for a global Eco-Social Market Economy) was compiled. It was published in September 2004.
In the meantime, more and more members of the European Parliament and national parliaments began to back the initiative. Soon organizations from the civil society and the economy followed, as well as the first university. The initiative has been received very well internationally and has grown into a network made up of over 5000 individual supporters, organizations as well as numerous federal states and communities.
Believing that change will come from the centre of society, supporters raise awareness of the issues surrounding globalization and motivate those around them for the implementation of fair globalization. Lectures are an essential part of spreading the word. By raising awareness and informing, alliances are formed and pressure is created from “bottom-up”. Those motivated are trained through multiplier training in Global Marshall Plan Academies.
Self-understanding
The material prosperity of mankind has never before experienced such an increase. Nevertheless poverty, deprivation and the resulting illnesses are still alarmingly widespread. The increasing overexploitation of nature, the waste of limited resources and the expected catastrophic climate consequences linked to pollution will in the next 30 years present mankind with its biggest challenge yet.
The unsustainable consumption of developing countries, poverty and population growth are among the key problems. Many hundreds of millions of people do not benefit from the positive effects of ongoing globalization. this has further increased the income gap between rich industrial nations and the poorest developing countries. The spread of AIDS and looming population growth also accelerate this gap.
Any effort to overcome this unsustainable development will be four times more difficult in the future, or even impossible, if a fundamental turnaround is not set in place soon.
The Global Marshall Plan Initiative wants to strengthen these turnarounds. With the self-understanding of a network-style movement for a World in Balance, positively aligned powers from politics, economics, science and civil society are brought together in a wide-ranging alliance based on the key requirements of fair globalization. This relies on the simultaneous pursuit of “bottom-up” and “top-down” approach, thus raising awareness and increasing lobbying.
Through lectures, information events and publications, more people and groups are continually informed about the absolute necessity and the possibility of a global Eco-Social framework, so that political change comes from the centre of society. At the same time, support for the Global Marshall Plan and a global Eco-Social Market Economy is acquired from national, European and international decision makers through a direct approach.
Goals
The goal of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative is to make a substantial contribution to a global eco-social market economy. This eco-social Marshall Plan would include realistic perspectives:
to overcome the degrading poverty of half of mankind, which long has been identified as chief cause of the existing world problems
to successfully establish global ecological and social standards for a sustainable development
to overcome the deep cultural frustration and humiliation experienced by the majority of the world's civilization and at the same time to eliminate the explosive environment that generates international terrorism and endangers global security
for a new economic miracle which specifically boosts the human potential of more than three billion people (which until now has been laying absolutely idle). This would ultimately bring use to the whole human race
to create fair globalisation
and to accomplish human rights and human dignity for everyone.
According to the initiative, a Global Marshall Plan could also allow attractive new perspectives for many other problems caused by an unbalanced globalization. Possible impacts for example could be:
The wealth and therefore the wages would increase in developing countries, so that the wage pressure in the economies of traditional industrialised countries will drop. The increased demand on the world's market would also then contribute to a heightened job security in industrialised countries.
An implementation of ecological goals would be far more realistic than is currently the case, since because poverty is, as the argument goes, one of the reasons for environmental damages in the poorest countries. Who would fight for daily survival, will be hardly convinced of environmental protection. In most parts of the world the implementation of ecological goals can only be realistic when they are directly linked to active promotion of social and ecological development.
The model of an open, peaceful, democratic, constitutional and educated civil society, which many see as best guarantee for a good and dynamic future perspective, would be brought forward by the eco-social Marshall Plan.
The goal of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative is to globally link appropriate order processes with competitive mechanisms to create value added systems by combining potential, resources and infrastructure with well planned, institutional solutions. A global eco-social market economy would therefore create the right balance between competitive economy, social solidarity and ecological sustainability.
The logic of the plan
Central to the logic of a plan is the following basic principle, as introduced by the Global Marshall Plan Initiative:
Investments, coordinated market openings and co-financing provide the harmonization that results in social and ecological standards. A form of targeted global overcoming of poverty should therefore emerge that will release especially strong new economic stimuli for the regions concerned, as well as for the whole global economy. By combining new growth with clear ecological standards at the same time a strong environmental approach to economic activities should be encouraged.
According to initiative, the new economic, ecological and social perspectives would have a strong impulse for the inner peace of the global community, which in turn is important for a lasting and sustained growth of economy.
It is also assumed that the positive effects of a Global Marshall Plan would also consequently increase the pull on governments, who so far have been averse to the eco-social movement. It would reinforce the pressure on these governments to give space for these developments, to reduce corruption and boost Good Governance. Good Governance signifies a well working guidance and control system of a political social unit as a state or a community. The principles often include terms such as transparency, efficiency, participation, responsibility, constitutional state, democracy and justice often belong to the principles.
Especially important is that the Global Marshall Plan overcomes old clashes of interests and that it achieves an unusually wide support.
One of the surprising intermediate results of the present process is that it is supported by commercial and industrial enterprises and their federations as well as severe critics of the previous form of globalisation and representatives from the “North” and “South”. Several well known representatives of all main political movements, all civil sectors and global acting networks of civil society argued vehemently for the initiative. The existing approaches and ideas of the initiative could open is a real prospect to bridge the wide social gap.
Key requirements for a world in balance
Elements of the Global Marshall Plan, including the five interrelated building blocks of the plan, have already been mentioned in previous UN summits, European policy and demands from various NGOs and institutions. The five building blocks, which are continually adapted to the current challenges, form the starting point and at the same time the foundation of the initiative.
Further development and implementation of the UN Millennium Development Goals
In September 2000 the United Nations (UN) came together at the General Assembly to discuss the most important challenges in the coming decade. In the final Millennium Declaration, globalization was highlighted as one of the most important current issues.
In this declaration, the 192 UN member states committed themselves to the concrete Millennium Development Goals, which should help to ensure everyone benefits from globalization.
The UN Millennium Development Goals represent the beliefs of the initiative – the first intermediate step towards fair world order and to sustainable development. It is unlikely that the goals will be achieved by 2015. Many problems have even worsened, highlighting a glaring failure of the international community. If anything, this should be all the more incentive to updates the goals and meet them promptly.
Achieving the 0.7% target and raising an additional necessary funds
A series of appropriate and necessary declarations and agreements (such as the above-mentioned Millennium Development Goals) have been only previously implemented to an extremely discouraging extent. If the apparent gap between declaration of intent and ability to act is not soon overcome, we are threatened with an escalation of global problems. Especially worrying is the looming crisis of confidence in decision-making processes on all levels and inability to enact policies in general.
The phase of understanding must therefore immediately be followed by a phase of decisive implementation. This involves not only the delivery mechanism (see 5.4) but also all questions of financing.
The financial means needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals lies, after an analysis from the UNO, at around US$50 billion per year plus some $20 billion for the provision of public goods and humanitarian missions. Considering the current situation significantly more resources are needed for development aid and the implementation of the MDGs. By enforcing the 0.7% GNP target, which the United Nations has been aiming at for decades, the means to finance development aid would be available.
In comparison:
The percentage volume of the US Marshall Plan after the Second World War was 1.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) of the USA – over a time period of 4 years.
Global military spending in 2004 amounted to around $1000 billion excluding the cost for the Iraq War. The Iraq War has already cost an additional several hundred billion US dollars.
These numbers illustrate that the proposed Global Marshall Plan on the stated level is by all means financeable.
Fair taxation on the global value-added processes
As well as market openings and new delivery mechanisms, global development also requires the above-mentioned financial means for international cooperation. Despite the principal way of using national budgets to provide the necessary funds, it would be easier, from a fundamental and procedural point of view, to find another way to allocate these funds.
On the one hand, national budgets are not directly charged, but on the other hand, the generated funds could be better separated from the national interests of donating countries, and it is easier to move forward together when everyone moves at the same pace. Since in the past self-contained national interests have repeatedly affected the efficiency of measures for development cooperation and consequently the public reputation of such programs has significantly decreased. An improvement in finding new means of financing could prove critical both politically as well as for the public acceptance of a Global Marshall Plan.
Therefore, the initiative urges that for regulatory reasons, due to improved governance action, for increased transparency, and in particular for better controls on the world finance sectors, tax on global value-added processes and the use of Global Commons must be systematically established. Examples of these include a global financial transactions tax, the trade with CO2 emissions allowances in context of climate justice and a kerosene tax. The following are some examples:
Financial transactions tax
Another proposal to finance a Global Marshall Plan, which also has support from numerous experts, is a tax on global financial transactions. The financial transaction tax (FTT) is currently on the verge of a breakthrough in the EU.
Critics of this idea are concerned that as a result of the tax, the “collective intelligence” in control of highly sensitive financial flows would be charged. On the contrary, in the recent excesses and “bubbles” of international capital, financial markets and the New Economy, this intelligence has proved to be not all that far reaching. However it is in any case only a cautious use of these instruments and this suggested only on a global level.
A cautious start could be, for example, a global financial transaction tax of initially 0.01% If this proves to be positive, the value could be increased to 0.02%. With this, $30–40 billion could be raised each year.
However it must be acknowledged that such a global tax would require the establishment of new international structures that would possess the necessary authority as well as the effective sanctions.
Other considerations
In addition to the two presented financing options, the establishment of a Global Climate Certificate System (GCCS), a Future Bond, an International Finance Facility and a Kerosene Tax are also being discussed.
Other important considerations include the debt of development countries, closing offshore tax havens, which deprive national tax systems of some $50 billion every year, dismantling protectionist structures as well as discussions on an international cartel authority.
Fair, global partnerships and effective appropriation of funds
A fair partnership in development assistance on all levels and an adequate cash flow are the requirements for a sustainable future perspective for the entire world. Promoting Good Governance, subsidiaries, rationality, education, combating corruption, as well as an appropriation of funds, coordinated and directed at a grass-roots level, are considered crucial for self-regulated development (e.g. micro-financing).
To be able to develop the desired effect and gain broad and sustained support of global civil society but also to find the economy and politics, earlier mistakes in development cooperation must be avoided in the implementation of the Global Marshall Plan.
The overcoming of global market fundamentalism and the realization of a global eco-social market economy should be made possible by establishing a better framework for the global economy in a fair global agreement. The most appropriate way appears to primarily be the relationship between ethic, economic, ecological, social, cultural and democratic standards with such a programme.
The standards and codes of practice are related to (co)financing programmes. The allocation of funds must not be influenced through short-term economic interests of rich countries or through short-term power interests of elites in poor countries. This can best be achieved through a consistent focus on the mentioned standards, an associated accountability, an active and transparent involvement of industry and the organisation of civil society.
The first phase of the Global Marshall Plan seeks for the application of the following standards which have already been agreed on by UN member states:
Basic economic, social and cultural human rights, which are largely congruent with the core standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO), such as organisational rights, gender equality, prohibition of child labour etc.
Standards of international environmental and conservation agreements such as the Convention on Bio-diversity, CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or the Washington Convention) and the Kyoto Protocol.
Ignoring some of these standards represents, in many areas, the most important competitive economic advantages for less developed countries. The example of EU enlargement shows however that agreements on the application of common high standards and protection levels can be achieved, if accompanied by a co-financing of the development of weaker partners by developed countries is ensured. This coupling is profitable for all involved.
Previously the most effective ways of enforcing standards on a global level were held by the World Trade Organization (WTO). However the organisation has received criticism like hardly any other. This is mainly because, in accordance with their mandate, they primarily promote the reduction of trade barriers and in doing so, discounts ecological, social and cultural aspects.
In the long-term, however, the WTO could still be reformed into a sustainable institution with trade regulations associated with the above-mentioned standards towards a fair, balanced and sustainability-oriented economic system. This should provide all elements of the prospective framework for non-compliance with the same legal action and sanction options. The equality of trade, environmental and social standards through a link with the WTO is one of the central concerns of the initiative.
Alternative considerations concerning the enforceability of ecological and social standards focus on strengthening a reformed UN and more efficient means of enforcing social standards within the ILO or human rights.
Every level, from the individual and local, to the national and global, has its own, essential function in a globalised world. One accomplishment of the tasks according to the principle of subsidiarity (principle that states matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority) is essential for an efficient implementation of a Global Marshall Plan and requires a lot of changes, since the political decision-making structures of today are still far from fulfilling the needs of the growing world society.
Knowledge transfers, empowerment, investments directed at education and health must be central to the effort. Important aspects to achieve a reasonable regulatory framework and a self-regulated development include:
Fair cooperation based on partnerships on all levels
Strengthening of decision-making and organisation opportunities for partner countries
Promoting Good Governance and fighting corruption
Appropriation of funds, coordinated and directed at a grass-roots level, e.g. micro-credit
and adequate funding
The ideology that the luck is on the side of the fittest, thus essentially stating that poverty is caused by itself, dismisses the many dimensions of poverty and neglects its causes which lie not finally in the unequal property and power structures that have maintained poverty and dependence for centuries.
A worldwide expansion of “Western” development and suppressing our unsustainable, undesirable development does not lead to worldwide wealth in any way, but to cultural impoverishment as well as the destruction of our natural resources.
From development aid to development cooperation
The arrogance of the Western civilisation, which is perceived by people as humiliating, degrading and threatening, provokes anti-Western sentiment and provides the breeding ground for hate and violence. There are also unfairly distributed opportunities and a lack of balance of interests.
Combating the misery in the world is not just a handout, but humanitarian duty and peace policy is also in our best interests. These days widespread human security can not be achieved when we’re against one another, only when we’re with one another. In addition it is necessary to build mutual trust, to accept those in disadvantaged countries as equal partners and to allow contributions from international negotiation and decision-making processes.
Application of funds
Given the above considerations, the Global Marshall Plan Initiative sees the following principles and suggestions for the application of funds as particularly noteworthy:
The specific development programmes should be coordinated by the appropriated specialized organisations and programmes of the United Nations. The role of the United Nations must be strengthened.
The example of the already established financing organisation “The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria” should be observed to see whether establishing such financing organisation in the UN's own interaction with the economy and civil society is helpful to the key objectives of the Global Marshall Plan.
Provided that funds are acquired from world trade tax, it would be worth considering investing this initially into development goals in every economic sector so that income accumulated in these sectors would increase agreement from the economy.
An essential tool in the application of funds should be the public tender of proposed programmes from NGOs to maintain the best cost-income ratio in healthier competition.
Projects should have clear priority, which are based on entrepreneurial potential of local people – for example small credit banks and development schools where locals are trained by aid workers.
In technology transfers, the choice of promoted projects should be orientated above all towards those that teach largest possible number of locals the skills, so they are able to cope on their own as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The search for particularly successful, socially efficient and ecological projects and those success criteria should be defined and promoted as new international research priority. In this way the efficiency of many current forms of development assistance could be substantially increased.
Framework compatible with sustainability for the global economy: a global Eco-Social Market Economy
With the gradual implementation of a global Eco-Social Market Economy, a framework compatible with sustainability for the global economy will be established and the global market fundamentalism will be overcome. Functioning Global Governance structures need to reform existing institutions and policies (e.g. United Nations, World Trade Organization and World Finance Sector), as well as their coherent linkup to create a functioning whole.
Next stages
Currently the initiative for a Global Marshall Plan is supported by more than 5000 individuals, 200 organisations, all Austrian federal states as well as some German states and prominent public figures. In many European and non-European countries the first national and regional structures have been established. From the 19–20 April 2008 representatives from numerous local and regional groups from Germany met in Erfurt to discuss establishing a national initiative with the purpose of a new governance structure of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative. As a result, an Erfurt Declaration was accepted, which expresses the will to establish an umbrella organisation to house the local, regional and national groups. As to not contract initiative's own understanding of its network-like character and open design, the establishment of a national organisation has recently been abandoned. People can belong to numerous organisations, get involved in local groups informally or organize a club. There should not be a national organisation or governing body.
As an international initiative, the goals are strategic: implementing a Global Marshall Plan and developing a broad public awareness of globally responsible action. Only an increased awareness and an improved understanding can be a reliable basis to lead the initiative to become better known and to create fairer globalization.
The Global Marshall Plan Initiative addresses this with their ideas and suggestions aimed at different audiences:
To all people in the world to contribute to the initiative with their knowledge, experiences and ideas
To religious organisations as well as the media and artists to spread the ideas of the Global Marshall plan and create awareness
To interested groups as well as in NGO organised civil societies. The goal is to join forces and fight for a fair, sustainable globalization together.
To science. All disciplines are invited to help to develop the Global Marshall Plan with detailed and interdisciplinary established projects.
To the economy to make the Global Marshall Plan one its own concerns to create a socially fair and ecologically responsible economic development
To governments and parliaments of nation states to officially support the Global Marshall Plan and to develop it through discussion with other actors. This new quality of global action and problem-solving ability lies in the long-term interests of all countries.
To the European Union as an important bearer of hope for the project and for many people in the entire world. The EU member states are faced with the historical opportunity to make the transition from former colonial powers to partners of efficient and comprehensively understood development policies. The EU can and should courageously develop an alternative to current forms of globalisation and consistently advocate them in international negotiations.
To the UN and its programmes and specialized organisations that play a central role in the implementation of these projects. Initiatives to reform the UN in the direction of greater efficiency, competency and funding are supported by the initiative.
To the G8 to place combating poverty not as short-term measures such as aid and debt relief in the foreground, but to fight structural poverty through a reform of global regulations and institution at their roots.
Shortly after establishing the Global Marshall Plan Initiative, Karolin and Frithjof Finkbeiner founded the Global Marshall Plan Foundation. From them on, the foundation took over from the duties originally assigned to the Global Contract Foundation of an international coordination office of the initiative. Since the foundation has acted as secretariat for the initiative, taking care of the proper application of logos, networking actors and promoting many innovative projects with the help of numerous supporters. Alongside the support of the children's initiative Plant-for-the-Planet, which is active in more than 193 countries, it is possible to organize more international conferences, as for example the Commons Forum, and train around 40 participants through the multiplier training of the Global Marshall Plan Academy that take places yearly.
Some of the more than 200 organizations that support the Global Marshall Plan Initiative, set up a coordination circle for the initiative in December 2010 in Munich and took over the political and content related duties that had until then been shared out between others. The coordination circle develops strategic and content positions of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative, decides which projects to support, works on further development of content and is responsible for the yearly initiative meeting. Since November 2011 members have busied themselves with the development of a list of demands for the financial crisis. The current paper can be downloaded from the initiative's website.
The current projects of the initiative are the University Days: Eco-Social Market Economy and Sustainability, a collaborative project between the initiative and 5 other organizations, as well as other multiplier training through the internationalisation and offer of other formats within the Global Marshall Plan Academy. Both projects are supported by the Global Marshall Plan Foundation. The foundation of one of three project offices finances the University Days, for the Global Marshall Plan the organizational administration. The support and maintenance of local activities through the coordination office, the coordination and communication of speakers and lecturers are additional important component of the commitment of the initiative.
Supporters
Supporters of the initiative include Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Hubert Weinzierl (BUND), Rita Süssmuth, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, Franz Josef Radermacher, Jakob von Uexküll, Ulrich Martin Drescher, Renée Ernst, Sandra Maischberger (all from Germany), Josef Riegler, Franz Fischler (Austria), Prince El Hassan bin Talal (Jordan), Vandana Shiva (India), Jane Goodall (UK) and approximately 5000 supporters from Germany and Austria.
The supporting organisations include the Club of Rome, the Eco-Social Europe, the German Federal Association of Economic Development and Foreign Economic Affairs, AIESEC Germany and Austria, Cap Anamur/German Emergency Doctors, VENRO (umbrella organisation of development non-governmental organisations), UN Millennium Campaign Germany as well as all the federal states of Austria.
In January 2007 the state parliament of Thuringia became the first national parliament in Germany to commit the goals of the Global Marshall Plan. The parliament paper (Parliament paper 4/2658) also requested the Thuringia state government to support the development of a concrete package of measures for the implementation of the Global Marshall Plan and to raise awareness with prominent example projects and information events in Thuringia as well reporting on progress every three years in state parliament. Since November 2007 the city of Munich has also supported the Global Marshall Plan.
An up-to-date list of supports can be found on the Global Marshall Plan website.
On a local level
Since Spring 2004, a year after the initiative was founded, the local and university groups were founded by supporters in numerous places. The members of these groups stand together for a World in Balance to support the goal of a fairer world. Again and again new like-minded people are brought together by getting involved in their area.
The members of predominantly German-speaking areas (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) as well as international operating local groups and individual contact points operate projects for raising awareness. Through bottom-up activities, supporters clear up to those around them topics such as the climate crisis, global poverty and other inequalities to contribute actively towards the necessary changes. With the active announcement of the Global Marshall Plan the supporters understand as lobbying for the common goal – a World in Balance – and act from the centre of society, pressurizing politics and the economy.
The Global Marshall Plan University Group was brought to life in 2004 as the first local group. They already organised series of lectures with personalities such as nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus and was an incentive and model for other local groups. Currently there are more than 33 contact points worldwide, 23 of which are in German speaking countries acting locally.
Literature
Al Gore: Wege zum Gleichgewicht. Ein Marshallplan für die Erde. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1992.
Möller, Radermacher, Riegler, Soekadar, Spiegel: GLOBAL MARSHALL PLAN, Statement der Global Marshall Plan Initiative. 64 pages. Foundation basis of the initiative, Horizonte Verlag, 2004, .
Global Marshall Plan Initiative (Hrsg.): Hoffnung Europa. Strategie des Miteinanders, Hamburg. 2006.
Global Marshall Plan Initiative (Hrsg.): Impulse für eine Welt in Balance. Hamburg, 2005.
Global Marshall Plan Initiative (Hrsg.): Welt in Balance. Zukunftschance Ökosoziale Marktwirtschaft. Hamburg, 2004.
Huber, Florian J.: Global Governance und der Global Marshall Plan - Strategien, Kritik und Analyse. Saarbrücken, 2007
Franz Josef Radermacher: Global Marshall Plan. A Planetary Contract. Für eine weltweite Ökosoziale Marktwirtschaft. Hamburg, 2004. (published in both German and English)
Huschmand Sabet: Globale Maßlosigkeit. Der (un)aufhaltsame Zusammenbruch des weltweiten Mittelstandes. Düsseldorf, 2005.
Radermacher, F.J.: "Die neue Zukunftsformel" in: . 4, 2002a
Franz Josef Radermacher, Bernd Beyers: Welt mit Zukunft - Überleben im 21. Jahrhundert. Der Global Marshall Plan als Zukunftsoption. Hamburg, Murmann-Verlag, 2007,
External links
Global Marshall Plan Initiative (https://www.globalmarshallplan.org/english/)
Stiftung Weltvertrag / Global Contract Foundation (http://www.weltvertrag.org/index_eng.html)
Eco-Social Forum / Ökosoziales Forum Österreich (http://www.oekosozial.at/index.php?id=1&L=1)
Plant for the Planet Initiative (http://www.plant-for-the-planet.org/)
References
International sustainable development
Global policy organizations
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This is a list of fictional characters in the manga series Bakuman. The writer of the series, Tsugumi Ohba, developed the basic character traits while Takeshi Obata, the artist, created the visual character designs. A majority of the characters are themselves involved in the manga industry as manga artists, editors, or assistants.
Main characters
Moritaka Mashiro
Played by: Takeru Satoh
was once content in following the usual life of a Japanese citizen by attending a university and becoming an office worker, however he is inspired to become a manga artist like his late uncle Nobuhiro. He has a crush on his classmate Miho Azuki that he ends up making a promise to marry her after both of them achieve their dreams. He teams up with Akito Takagi to create a manga that is worthy to be adapted into an anime. The two work under the shared pen name where he serves as the illustrator. His nickname is , which is an alternate reading of the kanji in his name. He is voiced by Jun Fukuyama in the flash web-comic. His favorite manga is Ashita no Joe. Mashiro is based on the two Bakuman authors.
Akito Takagi
Played by: Ryunosuke Kamiki
partners with Mashiro on making manga together. He specializes in story lines, some of which are unorthodox, as well as a style known as "serious comedy", where a scene with underlying seriousness comes off with humor, writing them into their manga. The two start working under the pen name ; Takagi is sometimes called , which is an alternate spelling of his name. Prior to teaming up with Mashiro, he is a star student who attracts Aiko Iwase although the latter thought of him more as an academic rival. However, he becomes frustrated that his parents were pushing him towards becoming an office worker that he decided to do manga instead. After revealing his career aspirations, he chooses Kaya Miyoshi as his girlfriend over Iwase. He is voiced by Shinnosuke Tachibana in the flash web-comic. His favorite manga is Dragon Ball.
Miho Azuki
Played by: Nana Komatsu
is Mashiro's love interest in the series. She aspires to become a voice actress. Her mother is the woman Mashiro's uncle Nobuhiro fell in love with. Azuki promises to marry Mashiro after they achieve their dreams; however, they agree not to see each other until then. She picks up voice work, although her popularity comes mostly because of her looks, and not because of her poor singing. When her agent urges her to participate in a gravure idol photo book, she struggles with the idea of showing her body to the public, but with Mashiro's support, she declines the offer. She and Mashiro communicate mainly through text messages and sometimes through phone calls, but rarely meet except by chance or under special circumstances. During Mashiro's hospitalization, Miho reveals that she has liked him since the fourth grade. After Mashiro is released, they have been talking with each other much more than before.
Kaya Miyoshi
is Azuki's best friend and Takagi's girlfriend. She has rather poor self-esteem when it comes to her looks, believing others are lying when they complement her looks. Kaya used to practice martial arts in junior high, making her stronger than most girls; she also has a temper, which only gets worse when she gets drunk. Because her friends have high aspirations, she begins to feel left out, and decides to become a cell phone novelist. For her first story, she wants to depict the romance between Mashiro and Azuki; however, Takagi ends up writing it for her. She then changes her dream to support Mashiro and Takagi, with hopes of marrying Takagi; she starts by helping them read and watch through a pile of mystery-themed books and anime. She helps out in inking the manga and generally maintaining a positive atmosphere in the studio. Mashiro and Takagi find that her optimistic presence in the studio helps cheer up what is otherwise a very stressful working environment, and feel she is part of "the team". She is the one who came up with the "Muto Ashirogi" pen name. Her favorite manga is One Piece.
Supporting characters
Other manga creators
Eiji Niizuma
Played by: Shota Sometani
is a manga creator prodigy who won the Tezuka Award at age 15. He moves from Aomori to Tokyo to work on the serialization of his manga Crow on the condition that he gets the right to cancel any series in Weekly Shōnen Jump after becoming the magazine's most popular author. He later is drafted to illustrate Aiko Iwase's scripts in the form of +Natural, which he is able to effortlessly balance with Crow. After Crow enters its seventh year of serialization as one of Jump's flagship titles, Nizuma reveals that the series that he wants to cancel is his own, which he achieves after holding a record-breaking 20-week poll leadership, leading into the final chapter. From there, Nizuma decides to write a manga that would be "the number one in the world", and starts working on Zombie٭Gun with that intent. He enjoys being immersed in his work and blasting loud music in the background. He never seems to change his clothes, which consist of a sweater and sweatpants; he may not change clothes much, or has several similar outfits. Mashiro and Takagi declare him their rival, although he is very friendly upon meeting them and states he is a fan of theirs; indeed, this admiration also fuels their mutual rivalry and determination to write ever more enjoyable works. The head editor describes the difference between Mashiro and Takagi to Nizuma is their "love of manga"; indeed, Nizuma seems to have been obsessed with drawing manga since he was six years old. Nizuma tends to act conceited because he is hailed as a genius; however, after working on Crow for quite a long time, he becomes humbler, even claiming to "not be good enough of a manga artist to be judging other people's work" when asked by his editor to judge for the Treasure magazine. Nizuma is eccentric and has a variety of odd quirks, like constantly pronouncing sound effects while he draws and speaks, working to the sound of very loud music, and appearing most of the time with drawing quills tucked into the back of his shirt's collar, resembling small wings. Despite this, he has a keen eye for truly talented manga artists just by analyzing their work, and is a good judge of character. He works under the direction of the Weekly Shōnen Jump editor Yujiro Hattori and for a time with his two assistants, Shinta Fukuda and Takurō Nakai. His favorite manga is Doraemon.
Shinta Fukuda
Played by: Kenta Kiritani
first appears as an assistant for Eiji Nizuma. He received an honorable mention when he tried for the Tezuka Award with U-400 and also gets fifth place in the same issue of Akamaru Jump with Ashirogi's Money and Intelligence one-shot. He becomes friends with Mashiro and also competes with Ashirogi in the Gold Future Cup with his original manga Kiyoshi Knight. Fukuda then gets serialized and is an aspiring rival to Ashirogi, Nizuma, and Nakai, going on to achieve considerable popularity with his following series, the motorcycle racing-themed Road Racer Giri. Among them, he is considered to have the worst drawings, though that they often border on grotesque apparently matches his stories. He can be extremely conceited, abrasive and competitive at times, yet helps out his rivals, who are also his friends. When he heard of the rumors on the internet about Mashiro and Azuki, he went on the radio and scolded the listeners who badmouthed them. His favorite manga include romantic comedies To Love-Ru, Strawberry 100%, and I"s.
Takuro Nakai
Played by: Sarutoki Minagawa
is a former assistant of Eiji Nizuma's. As a manga artist, he won a monthly award ten years before his introduction in the story, and has since been determined to get serialized and find a girlfriend. He is good with drawing backgrounds and angles. He originally started as an assistant for Eiji Nizuma and then turned into an assistant for Kō Aoki, whom he was attracted to, for Hideout Door. Once the serialization ended, he confessed his love for Kō but was rejected. He eventually showed up again as an assistant for Takahama, who as an assistant for Muto Ashirogi who got serialized. Eventually, when Kō asked him to draw for her, he told her he would, on the condition that she became his girlfriend. Kō slapped him and told him to never speak to her again. After Takahama's series was canceled, and being rejected by another girl who was assisting with him, he gave up and returned to his home in Akita, despite protests from Kō, Shinta Fukuda (who was another assistant with him for Eiji) and both Mashiro and Takagi. However he eventually comes and becomes Nanamine Toru's assistant for his work "What is required for a good school life" He is later employed as Hiramaru's assistant, being manipulated by Mr. Yoshida. His favorite manga is Kimagure Orange Road.
Ko Aoki
is an aspiring female manga artist who joins Jump to work on a fantasy shōnen manga. Prior to her new genre, she worked for Margaret magazine in shōjo manga. She placed second in the Story King competition the year before. She is paired with Nakai for her first series, Hideout Door. Her real name is and she is a graduate student studying literature at the same university as Aiko Iwase. Her editor believes that her good looks will help her sales, however, she is distrustful of men, and regularly rejects Nakai's advances. However, she gradually opens up, and is quite warm and friendly to those she trusts. After Hideout Door is cancelled, Aoki resolves to return to shōjo, although she is later convinced to stay on working for Shōnen Jump. She works on the serialized series The Time of Green Leaves, and she does her own drawings with assistance from Shinta Fukuda. She and Hiramaru gradually develop a relationship, which eventually leads to them getting engaged. Her favorite manga is Kimi ni Todoke.
Koji Makaino
Koji Makaino is a musician who aspires to be a manga artist. His work "Colorfusical" placed second in the Tezuka Awards and is a finalist in the Gold Future Cup. He announces in the news that he is the musician "Koogy" in order to get more votes, but fails to land a series. At the Jump corporate party, he is the featured entertainer where he announces a partnership with Aoki when she considers moving to Jump Square, but this too is short-lived.
Kazuya Hiramaru
Played by: Hirofumi Arai
is introduced as a 26-year-old manga artist who quit his office job to draw manga after he picked up Shōnen Jump one day for the first time in his life and decided that drawing manga would be far less troublesome than office work. His first work, Otter No. 11 receives an honorable mention and becomes serialized around the same time as Mashiro and Takagi's work, though he has no experience or background knowledge with manga. Hiramaru is easily overwhelmed and finds it hard to deal with the stress of writing manga, having initially believed that being a manga artist would be an easy job. He sometimes hides in the other manga artists' studios. His editor manages to persuade him to continue by offering to help him get closer to Kō Aoki, as he is attracted to her; his attempts, however, usually end badly, but in chapter 114 he finally asks Aoki out. Due to his success, he has been called a manga genius possibly on the level of Eiji Nizuma, especially considering his inexperience and relative lack of interest in writing manga. His manga's successful stories stem from Kazuya's own negativity; if he becomes cheerier, his work suffers. Until near the end of the series Hiramaru's art was rather poor, which gave it votes from fans of comedy; however, Nakai (under Yoshida's orders) helped Hiramaru improve his drawing skills.
Aiko Iwase
is a former classmate of Mashiro and Takagi's during junior high school, where she is known for scoring high on school rankings. She assumes she and Takagi are a couple because he took her hand and accepted her statement of inspiring each other, although Takagi assumed she meant as academic rivals. Takagi later turns her down after she states that she disapproves of his writing manga. She reappears as a student at To-Oh University along with Kō Aoki. Under the pen name , she writes her first novel while in University, which she expects will impress Takagi. However, Takagi's refusal to say that novels are better than manga angers Iwase, who decides to write a manga for Shōnen Jack to prove her superiority. Her editor is originally Hattori, who sees her talent and believes her rivalry with Takagi will be an excellent way to spur Ashirogi for their next series. However, she is frustrated that Takagi does not return her feelings even though he admits that she is more talented than Miyoshi. After Takagi marries Miyoshi, she transfers her feelings to Hattori, who finds the relationship uncomfortable enough to bring the issue to his captain. Miura is assigned as her editor, while Hattori reassigned to Ashirogi for their upcoming series; the change angers her, especially because she feels Miura is less skilled than Hattori. Her writing and plot are praised as very well made and she is the writer of +Natural. Her favorite manga is Adolf ni Tsugu.
Shoyo Takahama
is introduced as a 19-year-old rookie assistant for Ashirogi on Detective Trap. While he is initially the least social of Ashirogi's three assistants, he gradually opens up to Mashiro, and expresses that he aspires to work for Disney. He eventually gets his own series in Jump, Business Boy Kenichi with Nakai and Kato as his assistants and Gorō Miura as his editor. However, the series eventually gets cancelled. Without a series of his own, Takahama returns to being Muto Ashirogi's assistant for their next series Tanto, but eventually gets another series, Seigi no Mikata (Mikata's Justice), which winds up being very successful. Both Mashiro and Takagi think highly of him and value his opinion on manga, and Takahama often expresses his frustration towards Miura when the two groups share the same editor.
Ryu Shizuka
is an 18-year-old newcomer manga artist who submits a manga called Shapon (The End of Japan) for an issue of Treasure. Nizuma considers him and his story to be second only to Mashiro and Takagi's manga in the same issue, stating that he was amazing and deep, and would have won if he had not been up against Muto Ashirogi. Because of the dark subject matter of his manga, he is working with a young editor named Yamahisa to make it more Jump-friendly. He has social anxiety disorder and is reluctant to talk to his editor face-to-face, instead preferring to have his meetings over the Internet. He is a recluse who has spent much of his time in his room with video games and computer since the eighth grade and is sensitive to the words of others. He starts to become more comfortable talking with Yamahisa further on in the story and Yamahisa later helps him buy his own apartment and begin conversing with people. Ryu's work eventually becomes much more lighter; he is last seen saying his next work will be one focusing on hope. His favorite manga is Level E.
Shun Shiratori
is one of Ashirogi's assistants when Perfect Crime Party begins publication. He comes from a very wealthy family and is somewhat sheltered, so he does not know basic things like how to run a washing machine. Shiratori is a very talented artist, though his mother disapproves of his decision to become a manga artist because she does not find is respectable. After meeting Ashirogi and their other assistants, Shiratori is encouraged to pursue his dream to become a manga artist and creates his own series, Rabuta and Peace, based on himself and his dog, Peace, with some initial help from Takagi. Thanks to the Ashirogi team and his older sister Hitomi, Shiratori stands up to his mother, who reluctantly allows Shiratori to live on his own and follow his own path. Though Rabuta and Peace is eventually cancelled, he decides to continue as a manga artist. Among the characters, he is the only one whose story is left unresolved.
Toru Nanamine
is a manga artist who was inspired by the early works of Muto Ashirogi and attempts to surpass them. He is however also highly distrustful of the editor-author relationship and creates a scheme to undermine it. While Nanamine initially appears as an extremely enthusiastic individual, he is actually sly and supremely arrogant, believing that no opinion other than his own matters and angrily lashing out when his assertions do not hold true. In particular, he believes the more reader opinions one can obtain beforehand, and the more suggestions can be incorporated into the manga, the better the manga will be. As a result, he uses unscrupulous means and regards his editor, Kosugi, with great contempt. Though Nanamine is a skillful artist, the means he uses to construct his story result in an increasingly fractured plot and he is eventually forced to concede to the stronger Ashirogi team when his dwindling pool of online advisors abandon him after learning how he lied to them. He later returns using an even less ethical method of using paid advisors to create the perfect manga for himself, initially testing the system with veteran manga creators and abandoning them. The act outrages the majority of manga creators and editors; the editor in chief only allows Nanamine to submit his work when Ashirogi and other artists express the desire to defeat him in direct competition. However, Nanamine fails to obtain one of the top three spots in the rankings and is banned from Shōnen Jump, as stipulated by the editor in chief; ironically, the third spot that got Nanamine out of the rankings is taken by a one-shot from Mikihiko Azuma, one of the washed-out manga artist employed and later discarded by his latter scheme.
Assistants
Naoto Ogawa
is Ashirogi's lead assistant during the serialization of Detective Trap. He is 31 years old, and has a wife and three kids. In addition to his work for Shōnen Jump, he also works as an assistant for Shonen 3. While he is careful to balance his work and family life, Ogawa sincerely cares about the quality of his employer's work. After "Trap" ends, he does not return until Ashirogi decides to hire a fourth assistant for the serialization of Reversi, during which he helped Mashiro manage deadlines and brought in two extra assistants when the Ashirogi team fell behind attempting to complete three storyboards simultaneously.
Natsumi Kato
is a bespectacled assistant who works for Ashirogi during the serialization of Detective Trap. She has worked a year in shonen and a year in shojo. She develops a crush on Mashiro, but gives up after meeting Azuki during Mashiro's hospitalization. After "Trap" is canceled, she becomes Takahama's assistant on Business Boy Kenichi, where she forms a friendly relationship with Nakai, until he misconstrues her amiability as romantic. She later assists Aoki on Time of Greenery, and returns to assist Ashirogi when Shun Shiratori resigns to work on his own manga series. She is friends with rookie voice actress Ririka Kitami, who is more oblivious and emotional than Kato; she often has to correct or pacify Ririka when she's thinking about something. Her favorite manga is said to be either The Rose of Versailles or Glass Mask.
Ichiriki Orihara
is introduced as Ashirogi's new assistant during their serialization of Vroom! Tanto Daihatsu. Energetic, cheerful, and talkative, he is very supportive of Ashirogi and genuinely enjoys working for them. After Takagi and Mashiro choose to end "Tanto," he agrees to work for them without pay and taking non-assistant work as a part-time job until they got a new series. Orihara remains Ashirogi's assistant during Perfect Crime Party and Reversi. Like Eiji Nizuma, Orihara is a bottomless pit, able to eat large amounts of food without suffering a stomach-ache. He also reads Tozai Sports; coincidentally, it was because of this that he was to show Mashiro and Takagi the negative take the newspaper did on the relationship between Miho and Mashiro. His favorite manga is Slam Dunk.
Shuichi Moriya
is one of Ashirogi's assistants for Perfect Crime Party and Reversi. He is a year younger than Mashiro and Takagi. After he became a finalist in the Tezuka Award, he decided to drop out of design school and concentrate on manga, which he regards as an art form that deserves more respect. While he is also an aspiring manga artist with excellent drawing skills, editors have remarked that his works tend to lecture at audiences and need to be simplified. Though he did not get along with Shiratori at first because Shiratori considered manga a commercialized product, they manage to reconcile their views thanks to Mashiro. As an assistant, he is dedicated and supportive; although he dislikes Ogawa for becoming Ashirogi's head assistant during Reversi because Ogawa will leave while the other assistants stayed behind, he comes to respect Ogawa when he returns at a critical hour with two additional assistants to help meet an important deadline. One of Moriya's favorite manga appears to be Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix.
Hiromi Yasuoka
is Fukuda's assistant, the only assistant that Fukuda has until the serialization of Road Racer Giri. He sports a mohawk is an avid admirer of Fukuda, often commenting about how cool Fukuda is, and Fukuda will often pay Yasuoka for any good ideas he comes up with.
Weekly Shōnen Jump editors
Some of the Weekly Shōnen Jump editors interact with the characters in Bakuman. They are organized in groups under deputy editors that compete against each other to select manga that are suitable finalists for their Tezuka Awards, as well as determining inclusion and serialization in their publications.
Akira Hattori
Played by: Takayuki Yamada
is Mashiro and Takagi's first editor. Although he does not want the two to experience success too rapidly, he encourages them to continue making manga and accepts their works for submission to the various contests and publications in Jump. After Detective Trap becomes serialized, however, Hattori loses them to Gorō Miura due to conflicting responsibilities, and soon becomes Aiko Iwase's editor. After The Perfect Crime Party is serialized, Hattori returns as Muto Ashirogi's editor, leading Miura to edit Iwase's work. He is somewhat of a schemer and likes to plot both behind other editors and even his own manga artists to advance the interests of the magazine. As such he came up with the idea of having Nizuma and Iwase collaborate on +Natural in order to inspire Mashiro and Takagi to work harder. His favorite manga is Cobra.
Goro Miura
is Mashiro and Takagi's editor between the start of Detective Trap and the serialization of Perfect Crime Party. Initially he is very enthusiastic but naive and somewhat incompetent due to lack of experience. He is desperate to get one of his series serialized in order to protect his job, and believes that gag manga have a better chance of doing so. This often clashes with Mashiro and Takagi's approach, leading to some arguments. Over time, and through the tutelage of Hattori, he becomes more flexible and his personal desires do not come into play as often, and Ashirogi come to accept him as an editor. He is also the editor for Takahama's Business Boy Kenichi and Seigi no Mikata and eventually becomes Iwase's editor. His favorite manga is Jungle King Tar-chan.
Hisashi Sasaki
Played by: Lily Franky
is the editor-in-chief of Weekly Shōnen Jump. Earlier in his career he had worked with Moritaka's uncle Nobuhiro as his editor. He eventually had to break the news that Nobuhiro would have to leave Shōnen Jump, leading to his unemployment and eventual death. Despite his stoic and stern demeanor, he is very passionate about what he does. Sasaki also likes to delegate responsibilities when able in order to give his subordinates experience. When dealing with the manga artists, he does not hesitate to put them in their place and will resort to trickery, much like Hattori, to make them see what will happen. Sasaki later becomes the editor in chief of the fictional new monthly magazine, Hisshou Jump. The character is based on the real person of the same name who was the editor-in-chief of Weekly Shōnen Jump from 2008 to 2011, coinciding with the majority of Bakumans serialization.
Yoshihisa Heishi
is the Deputy Chief Editor of Weekly Shōnen Jump. He has a serious personality and usually follows Sasaki's orders but does appear to have his own reservations sometimes. He is later promoted to Editor-in-Chief following Sasaki's move to Hisshou Jump. After his promotion, his personality alters somewhat; he becomes more open about his opinions, often dramatically leaving a room after giving one. The character is based on the real person of the same name who took over as editor-in-chief of Weekly Shōnen Jump from Sasaki in 2011, and held the position until mid-2017.
Soichi Aida
is one of the editor team-leaders at Shōnen Jump, with both Hattori and Miura in his team. He is also the editor of Aoki-Nakai's manga Hideout Door. He gives helpful advice to Miura on occasion but is troubled by the stirs Ashirogi is causing. He later becomes deputy chief editor.
Yujiro Hattori
is one of the youngest editors at Shōnen Jump and editor of Eiji Nizuma's successful manga Crow as well as Fukuda's Kiyoshi Knight and later Road Racer Giri. Yujiro has difficulty keeping Eiji in line, but prides himself on finding such a talented manga artist. Because he shares the same last name as Akira, he is referred to by his first name while Akira as referred to as "Hattori". He finds it difficult to get along with Nizuma and Fukuda at first due to their eccentric or brash personalities, but soon becomes accustomed to them. Due to his success, he later becomes a team leader and matures as an editor as he learns to take into consideration the factors that allow manga creators and their editors need to succeed.
Koji Yoshida
is an editor team-leader at Shōnen Jump and the editor of Hiramaru. A perceptive and astute editor, Yoshida's editing style is unscrupulous and he will use any means to get his authors to work. In Hiramaru's case he uses bait in various forms, lies about this bait, and exploits of Hiramaru's interest in Aoki. He also tricks Hiramaru in buying an expensive car and renting an expensive apartment to keep him from saving up money and forcing him to continue to work. When interacting with Hiramaru, Yoshida's face is usually not visible for the reader, though Yoshida appears in full in the editing department, as a reflection of their antagonistic relationship. His ability to manipulate Hiramaru lessens over time, particularly when Hiramaru makes it apparent he is aware of Yoshida's machinations when he complains that Yoshida needs to be more effective, though Hiramaru comes to trust that Yoshida does seem to want what is best for him. Though his manipulations don't seem to work after Hiramaru is engaged to Aoki, Yoshida's lies seem sufficient to manipulate Nakai into assisting Hiramaru.
Masakazu Yamahisa
is the editor behind Aoki's Time of Green Leaves and the editor of Ryu Shizuka. Yamahisa is a smooth-talker and attempts to garner the trust of his manga artist by reading their emotions. He personally decides to become Aoki's editor, seeing her marketability as a female manga artist, and helps her achieve success as a manga artist in Shōnen Jump by playing to her strengths in writing romantic or fantasy stories. As Shizuka's editor, Yamahisa seems genuinely concerned for Shizuka because of his lack of social skills, taking it upon himself to civilize him to the point of taking him out to hostess bars (which was one of many options he listed). While some of Yamahisa's attempt to help Shizuka backfire, they ultimate contribute to Shizuka's ability to create an interesting manga series and allow Shizuka's confidence grow. By the end of the series, Yamahisa is shocked to see how cheerful Shizuka has become from his times out of his apartment; before this, he often had to track him down when he was not making manga like he was supposed to.
Tatsurou Kosugi
is the editor of Toru Nanamine and the newest member of Jump's Editorial Department. Due to his inexperience and subservient personality he is an easy prey for Nanamine to exploit at first, but learns to become more assertive over time. He believes that his lack of experience is partially responsible Nanamine's disrespect towards the editorial department. Though Nanamine never shows any respect or any intent to listen to Kosugi's suggestions, Kosugi never wavers in his attempts to help Nanamine and expresses some remorse that Jump has lost a talented artist after Nanamine's final scheme fails and he is given a lifetime ban from Jump. At the end of the series, Kosugi is assigned to become the editor of Iwase and deal with her forceful personality much like Miura had before.
Notes
Works cited
"Vol." and "Ch." is shortened form for volume and chapter, referring to a volume or chapter number in the Bakuman manga
References
Bakuman
Bakuman
Bakuman
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On April 14, 2013, Daniel Marsh tortured, murdered, and mutilated Oliver “Chip” Northup Jr. and his wife Claudia Maupin in the couple’s Davis, California home. Marsh, who was 15 years old at the time of the murders, had an extensive history of antisocial and violent behavior. A diagnosed psychopath, Marsh had long been fantasizing about torturing and murdering people and desired to become a serial killer. The high-profile murders have impacted the policy debate surrounding the sentencing of juvenile offenders.
On the night of April 13, 2013, after years of homicidal urges, Marsh “had enough” and decided to make his fantasies come true. In the early morning hours of April 14, he left his mother’s home and wandered the streets of Davis in search of a home with open windows or doors, before coming upon Maupin and Northup’s residence. Marsh cut open the window screen, invaded the home, and made his way to the couple’s bedroom where he found Maupin and Northup asleep. Marsh then stabbed both victims to death. The attack was severe, leaving Northup with 61 stab wounds and Maupin with 67 stab wounds. After murdering Northup and Maupin, Marsh dissected, eviscerated, and mutilated their bodies. The couple’s bodies were discovered the next day. It wouldn't be until June that Marsh was arrested--due to Marsh's extensive planning of the murders, he left no DNA, fingerprints, footprints, or any other evidence at the crime scene. He became a suspect after bragging to his friends about the murders. Marsh was then interrogated and confessed to the crimes. He told investigators that the murders gave him a feeling of “pure happiness” which lingered for weeks. Marsh was convicted of the murders in September 2014. He was also declared sane.
In 2013, the California State Legislature had passed Senate Bill 260, which allows juvenile offenders such as Marsh to seek parole after 20 or 25 years. Because of this law, Marsh is eligible for parole after serving 25 years of his life sentence. In 2016, California voters passed Proposition 57, which requires that juvenile court judges decide whether juvenile offenders are tried in juvenile court or in adult court. In 2018, Marsh’s conviction was conditionally reversed pursuant to Proposition 57. A transfer hearing was held to determine if he should serve his sentence in the juvenile justice system or the adult criminal justice system. Though the juvenile court judge ruled to keep Marsh in the adult criminal justice system, a new law may result in Marsh being sent to the juvenile system. Senate Bill 1391 was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown in 2018. It prevents juveniles under age 16 from being prosecuted in adult court. Opponents of SB 1391 argued that it conflicted with Proposition 57. In O.G. v. The Superior Court of Ventura County, the California Supreme Court determined that SB 1391 did not conflict with Proposition 57. Marsh contends that SB 1391 should apply retroactively to him. Prosecutors disagree. Oral arguments before the Third District Court of Appeal were held on August 18, 2021. If sent to the juvenile justice system, Marsh, now 24, would be released from incarceration upon turning 25. In September, the Third District Court dismissed the appeal.
Victims
Oliver “Chip” Jennings Northup Jr. was born on April 26, 1925, in Grand Island, Nebraska. Northup served in the United States Navy during World War II. He was a prominent attorney, receiving his undergraduate degree from UCLA and his legum baccalaureus from Boalt Hall (UC Berkeley School of Law). He continued working as an attorney until his death. Northup, who was 87 years old at the time of his death, was elected to serve on the Woodland School Board. He also served as City Attorney for Woodland, Winters and Yolo, president of the Woodland Chamber of Commerce, and president of the Woodland Rotary Club. Additionally, Northup was a musician for the Putah Creek Crawdads and a founding member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis.
Northup met Claudia Maureen Maupin at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis. The couple married in 1996. Maupin, born May 15, 1936, was a pastoral associate at the Davis Unitarian Church. She was also active in local theater. Maupin was 76 years old at the time of her death.
Maupin had three children while Northup had six children along with two stepchildren from a previous marriage. Maupin and Northup's joint family included 11 children, 14 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.
Murderer
Daniel William Marsh is a convicted felon who is serving a sentence of 25 years to life for the murders of Claudia Maupin and Oliver Northup, who lived two homes down from his father. Marsh is currently incarcerated in the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego. Prior to murdering Northup and Maupin, Marsh had an extensive history of violent and antisocial behavior, as well as severe mental health problems. Marsh, a diagnosed psychopath, had been fantasizing about murdering people since the age of 10 and aspired to become a serial killer.
1997-2010
Marsh was born on May 14, 1997. He first made local headlines in 2008 at the age of 10 after receiving an American Red Cross Heroes Award for using CPR to save his father who was having a heart attack. Also in 2008, Marsh’s parents underwent a contentious divorce due to his mother’s affair with his former kindergarten teacher. It was at this point that Marsh’s homicidal fantasies first emerged. Marsh, then 10, was enraged with the woman for whom his mother had left his father. He plotted to slit her throat or strangle her to death. At age 10, Marsh also began to have dreams of killing people. At 11, he told a therapist about fantasies of torturing people and his desire to make those fantasies come true. When Marsh was 11, he was diagnosed with adjustment disorder with depressed mood. In seventh grade, he began threatening physical harm. In May 2010 Marsh started seeing Dr. David Besa, a clinical social worker from Kaiser Permanente. The intake form described Marsh as having nightmares and temper outbursts and being nervous and not liking other people. In August 2010, he was prescribed his first antidepressant, Prozac. The prescription called for one to two capsules daily, 100 in quantity.
2010-2013
As Marsh entered his teenage years, he began using alcohol and marijuana. He went back and forth between his parents’ homes until he was 14, at which point his father threw him out due to his constant drunkenness and marijuana use. Marsh’s mother remained oblivious to his substance abuse.
In October 2011, Marsh became anorexic. The following month, he was placed in an intensive outpatient program to treat the condition. The then 14-year-old had gotten down to 93 pounds.
Marsh was hospitalized for his eating disorder at the Berkeley Hospital from December 29, 2011, to January 25, 2012. Marsh was now taking Celexa. His medication was switched to Lexapro and was then switched back to Prozac. Marsh was also given Abilify, an anti-psychotic. A doctor noted that Marsh was having feelings of derealization, with out-of-body experiences four to five times a week.
As time went on, Marsh’s violent thoughts increased. At age 14, Marsh’s dreams about killing people, which had begun at age 10, became more frequent. In mid-December 2012, Marsh told a school counselor about his homicidal fantasies, resulting in the police being brought to the school. Marsh was then involuntarily hospitalized because of the danger he posed to himself and others.
At this point, his medication was switched to Zoloft with Seroquel. In early 2013, Marsh began taking Wellbutrin as well.
In January 2013, Marsh told his school psychologist about homicidal ideations he was having regarding school peers. When the counselor asked if he would act on them, he stated, “I have full confidence that I could hurt these people.” A police officer was again brought to the school, but it was determined that Marsh posed no danger to himself or others and no further action was taken. Soon after, Marsh had another meeting with the school counselor, this time describing graphically how he wanted to torture people by peeling skin from their hands and cutting off their eyelids. Marsh also confided that these graphic fantasies only “scratched the surface of his thoughts” and that he had given up fighting them. Marsh’s statements were not disclosed to authorities because there was believed to be no intent or identified victims.
Marsh’s homicidal thoughts continued. Whenever he looked at a person, he thought about how he would kill them. He also had fantasies of a schoolyard massacre and desired to become a serial killer. Marsh eventually began talking more persistently with friends about torturing and killing random people. He also began drawing violent pictures in art class. Marsh’s drawings depicted torture and killings with morbid details on the methods. Friends of Marsh later recalled that he spoke often about killing people and said that if he were caught for murder, he would claim insanity. He also made a detailed written plan to kill his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend. Additionally, Marsh was interested in Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, and other serial killers.
Beginning in 2012, Marsh became preoccupied with bestgore.com, a website that promoted “gore porn” and amateur videos of actual gory events. In addition to Marsh’s fascination with “gore porn” and his fantasies of murdering people, Marsh set fires and engaged in animal cruelty. His violent behavior against animals included killing cats. According to one friend, Marsh once strangled a cat in the street. When the friend asked why he strangled the cat, Marsh replied, "Well, I just wanted to do. I just, I hated that cat." Marsh also asked the friend if he could kill his dog. Additionally, Marsh kicked a dog and killed a raccoon.
Marsh’s mood seemed to improve after the murders of Northup and Maupin--he was named student of the month. However, in May 2013, Marsh was expelled from school for carrying a knife on campus.
Mental health conditions
Marsh, whose IQ is 114, experienced numerous mental health conditions. A psychiatrist from Kaiser Permanente diagnosed him with severe depression and anxiety. Marsh was also diagnosed with “emotional disturbance.” According to forensic psychologist and psychopathy expert Matthew Logan, Marsh is a psychopath, scoring 35.8 out of 40 on the Psychopathy Checklist. James Rokop, another psychologist, says that Marsh is a sexual sadist who killed solely to gratify himself. Dr. Merikangas, a neuropsychiatrist and neurologist, disagreed, stating that there was no evidence of Marsh having anti-social or sexual sadism disorders. Dr. Merikangas stated at trial that Marsh had manic depressive disorder, dissociative disorder, de-personalization, and anorexia nervosa. In addition to mental illness and violent thoughts, Marsh was detached from both parents. A friend of his mother’s explained that he showed no emotion towards her even when she cried. Marsh also appeared not to have any concern for his mother’s neurological illness, which often incapacitated her.
Murders
According to Marsh’s confession, on the night of April 13, 2013, after years of homicidal urges, he had “had enough.” Marsh, then 15, decided to live out his violent fantasies and kill someone. Marsh extensively planned the murders--he taped the bottom of his shoes so that he would not leave behind footprints and he wore gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints or DNA. He also wore all black clothing and a black face mask and armed himself with a six-inch Buck knife. On April 14, between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m., he left his mother’s house and roamed the streets of Davis searching for a home with open doors or windows. According to Marsh’s confession, he checked between 40 or 50 homes for open windows or doors. He finally found an open window at Maupin and Northup’s condo, which was two doors down from his father’s residence. He sliced open the screen, climbed through the open window, and waited in the living room until he heard snoring sounds coming from the master bedroom. He followed the snoring sounds to the bedroom, where he found Maupin and Northup asleep.
Marsh stood over the couple’s bed for about 10 minutes and watched them sleep while deciding how he would kill them. During his confession, Marsh described feeling “nervous but excited and exhilarated” as he did this. It was at this point that Maupin awoke, saw Marsh, and began screaming. Marsh then began stabbing her in the torso. As she was being stabbed to death Maupin screamed for help and begged Marsh to stop. Marsh later told investigators that her cries for help motivated him to attack her more. Marsh later recalled that “the old lady just would not die.” When Northup awoke, Marsh stabbed him until he knew he was dead. Marsh later told investigators that he continued stabbing Northup and Maupin after they were deceased, saying, “it just felt right.” Maupin suffered 74 wounds around her body, including 67 stab wounds. One of the stab wounds knocked out her tooth. Northup suffered 65 separate wounds ranging from his head to his legs. Sixty-one of those were stab wounds. In total, Marsh inflicted over 128 stab wounds onto his victims.
In addition to murdering Maupin and Northup, Marsh mutilated their bodies. He cut the deceased victims’ bodies open and examined and experimented on them. He also disemboweled them--according to first responders who were at the crime scene, Maupin and Northup’s organs had been removed from their bodies. Marsh tried to take Maupin’s eye out with the knife but found this to be too difficult. He pulled fat out of her leg and torso and cut open Northup’s forehead out of curiosity. He also inserted a cellphone into Maupin's abdomen and a drinking glass into Northup's abdomen. During Marsh’s interrogation, he stated that he placed the items inside the victims’ bodies to “fuck with” the people who would later investigate the murders.
According to Marsh, committing the murders gave him the most enjoyable feeling he had ever experienced. This feeling, he told investigators, was heightened when the victims were conscious and resisting. Marsh also told investigators that the positive feeling was better than sex and lingered for weeks. Marsh kept souvenirs from the crime--the knife used to murder and mutilate the couple, and the bloody clothing he wore during the attacks. Marsh also planned to commit more murders. He wandered the streets looking for victims but could not find any. During these expeditions, he armed himself with a baseball bat. He planned on murdering his next victims with the bat so that the crimes would not be associated with the stabbing murders of Maupin and Northup.
Investigation
On the morning of April 14, Maupin and Northup were absent from church, prompting concerns from their family. Northup’s daughter Mary tried calling them but received no answer. Northup also failed to show up for a gig with his local folk band. Northup’s son Robert and one of his grandsons then visited the couple’s home. They left, believing Maupin and Northup were out of town. It was later that evening that Maupin’s daughter Laura and police went to the couple’s home. Laura rang the doorbell but received no answer. She then went around back, finding one of the windows open with its screen slashed. Looking through the bedroom window, she saw bloodstains. The police were able to see the victims’ bodies through the window using a flashlight. They forced entry and made the gruesome discovery. Investigators, including 25 FBI agents, tried to solve the murders. However, no physical evidence could be found. Marsh left no DNA, fingerprints, or footprints. Marsh would only be apprehended after bragging about the murders.
On April 14, Marsh bragged to a close friend that he had committed the murders. The next day, he confessed again to his friend and to others during lunch. After school, he asked his girlfriend if she had heard about the murders. When she said no, Marsh began proudly describing the crime, giving details about the manner in which he had murdered Northup and Maupin, and smiling and explaining how great he had felt. The girlfriend initially did not believe Marsh. The next day, Marsh described his crime again to a close friend, smiling, and claiming it was the best experience he had ever had.
On April 16, Marsh’s friend inquired about the murders. Marsh again described the crime as the “best feeling in his life.” He showed his friend several items, including the knife used to commit the murders and the gloves, ski cap, boots, and jacket he had worn during the murders. The friend later testified that he did not know how to respond. Marsh’s friend and girlfriend spoke with each other about what Marsh had told them. However, they did not initially report the confessions to anyone else, as they feared Marsh. Marsh’s friend eventually informed the school that Marsh was carrying a knife around campus, which resulted in Marsh’s suspension.
Marsh’s girlfriend broke up with him on June 4, because she felt “intimidated” by him. One or two weeks later, at around midnight, Marsh sneaked into her house through the dog door, an action that caused the girlfriend to fear for her life. The girlfriend told Marsh’s friend about the incident. The friend then told Marsh’s father about the murders, but Marsh’s father did not believe him. Marsh’s friend then went to the police. He later told CBS 48 Hours that he made the decision to contact police because Marsh had threatened to kill again. Marsh’s friend was questioned at the police station for several hours. Marsh was arrested the next day on June 17.
Arrest and interrogation
On June 17, a high school resource officer brought Marsh in for questioning. Marsh was then interrogated by Davis Detective Ariel Pineda and FBI Special Agent Chris Campion. At first, he denied involvement in the murders and tried to talk his way through the situation. He sobbed and pleaded with Campion to believe him. Finally, after three hours and 38 minutes of questioning, Marsh began to confess. “I -- that night I just -- I couldn't take it anymore. I had to do it. I lost control,” Marsh said. Marsh admitted to hunting for someone to kill and to breaking into the couple’s home. He stated that he “went to their bedroom, I opened the door, then I just kind of stood over their bed, watching them sleep for a few minutes...My body was trembling. I was … nervous but excited and exhilarated. I was actually gonna do it, I was there, it was finally happening.”
Marsh then described in graphic detail how he murdered the couple and mutilated their bodies. “I cut open both of their torsos, you around here [points to two areas of his chest], and in the woman I put a phone inside of her and I put a cup inside the guy.” During his interrogation, Marsh admitted that he got a positive feeling from committing the murders, saying, “It was pure happiness, and adrenaline and dopamine, just all of it, rushing over me”, and “I'm not gonna lie. It felt amazing. He also stated that this positive feeling was “the most exhilarating, enjoyable feeling I’ve ever felt.” This positive feeling, Marsh explained, was heightened when Maupin and Northup were conscious and resisting. He also admitted that the great feeling the murders gave him lingered for weeks.
During his interrogation, Marsh stated, “I don't feel sympathy for other people -- at all. Don't feel empathy for them.” After Marsh made a full confession, Campion asked him “You mentioned that pretty much everybody you meet you have thoughts about killing them and how you would kill them...So how would you kill me?” Marsh answered, “Just a lot of ways. … Choking you to death with your tie...Beating your face into the mirror until it broke and using the glass to cut your arteries, gouging your eyes out, and just smashing your face into the wall. Nothing personal.” Marsh also told investigators, “all the evidence you need” was in his mother’s garage. Investigators later searched the garage, finding the bloody clothing Marsh had worn during the murders and the knife used to commit them. He had kept them as souvenirs.
Legal proceedings
Marsh was charged with two counts of first-degree murder with special enhancements for: intentionally killing more than one person; demonstrating exceptional depravity in the killings; lying in wait to kill the victims; and inflicting torture in the commission of the murders. He also faced enhancements for the use of a deadly weapon during the murders. He pleaded not guilty.
Marsh later changed the plea from not guilty to not guilty by reason of insanity.
Marsh’s defense attorneys had him examined by psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Soulier. When Soulier and Marsh met, Marsh threatened to kill him. Soulier found Marsh to be mentally ill but sane. Marsh’s attorneys continued with the insanity defense.
Following an evidentiary hearing, Marsh’s attorneys filed a motion to suppress his June 17, 2013, confession, arguing that the interrogation began under false pretenses and that Marsh had made repeated requests to go home. Prosecutors, the defense argued, had failed to meet the standard that the confession was voluntary and that Marsh, despite being read his Miranda rights, intelligently waived those rights. Yolo County Judge David Reed denied the motion. Reed also denied a motion made by prosecutors, which argued that the defense withheld discoverable evidence until days before the trial was set to begin.
Marsh’s trial began on September 2, 2014. Marsh, then 17, stood trial as an adult. The trial was presided over by Yolo Superior Court Judge David Reed. Assistant Chief Deputy DA Michael Cabral and Deputy DA Amanda Zambor prosecuted Marsh while Deputy Public Defender Ron Johnson defended him. The jury consisted of eight women and four men. The trial lasted five weeks.
Marsh’s defense team claimed that the side-effects of the medication he took combined with mental illness triggered uncontrollable violence and rendered him temporarily insane.
Prosecutors argued that Marsh was cunning and manipulative and committed the murders in a premeditated and carefully planned manner. During the trial, jurors heard from numerous witnesses, including investigators, a forensic pathologist, and Marsh’s friends and girlfriend. They also heard from psychiatrists and therapists who had treated Marsh.
On September 26, 2014, after under two hours of deliberating, the jury reached a verdict: guilty on both counts of first-degree murder and all special circumstances. Next, jurors had to determine if Marsh was sane or insane. On September 30, the jury found that Marsh was, in fact, sane when he committed the murders.
Although Marsh was tried as an adult, his juvenile status made him ineligible for the death penalty and life in prison without parole. The maximum sentence Marsh faced was 52 years to life. Marsh’s defense attorneys argued that he should be sentenced to 25 years to life. The maximum sentence, they argued, would constitute cruel and unusual punishment when imposed on a juvenile. Prosecutors argued for the maximum sentence, with Cabral saying, “This case screams out for 52 years to life. Nothing else would be appropriate.” Cabral also stated that in the 28 years he had been a prosecutor “never have I seen such a heinous and reprehensible act, and never have I seen a defendant with such an evil soul.” During the sentencing hearing, Maupin and Northup’s family members gave victim impact statements. Maupin’s eldest daughter Victoria Hurd stated: “She lived her life loving people, always willing to lend a hand, a shoulder or an ear...If she were here, she would help us survive this. … But she is not here, because Daniel Marsh killed my mother for his own perverse gratification.” Northup’s son James spoke about how the news of the murders shattered the joy of his granddaughter's birth and how the trauma caused by the murders led him to experience anxiety, sleeplessness, and a recurrence of ALS that had previously been in remission.
Judge Reed chose to sentence Marsh to the maximum term of life in prison with parole eligibility after 52 years. Specifically, Marsh was given 25 years to life for each count of murder plus two years for special enhancements. During sentencing, Reed pointed out that Marsh was proud of his crime and mutilated the victims' bodies out of curiosity. He also pointed out that Marsh’s actions were not impetuous or recklessly impulsive and that he had attempted to commit more murders.
Even though Marsh was sentenced to 52 years to life, California law will allow him to be paroled after serving 25 years, when he is 42.
In 2013, the California State Legislature had passed Senate Bill 260. The bill was sponsored by Senator Loni Hancock and co-sponsored by Human Rights Watch, Youth Law Center, the Friends Committee on Legislation of California, and the Post-Conviction Justice Project of the University of Southern California. The law was subsequently signed by Governor Jerry Brown. It established a “youth offender parole hearing” mechanism for offenders who are incarcerated for crimes committed as juveniles. If the sentence for the prisoner’s controlling offense is less than 25 years to life they are eligible for release or parole during their 20th year of incarceration. If the sentence for their controlling offense is 25 years to life or greater they are eligible to be released after 25 years.
Legal changes and appeals
In 2016, California voters passed Proposition 57, which holds that juvenile court judges must decide whether juvenile offenders are tried in juvenile court or in adult court. In 2018, California’s Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 57 could be applied retroactively to cases that had not yet been finalized.
On February 22, 2018, the California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District conditionally reversed Marsh's 2014 conviction pending a transfer hearing to determine if he should continue to serve his adult sentence. On June 21, 2018, prosecutors filed a juvenile petition alleging the same offenses and special allegations and a motion to transfer Marsh to adult court. The transfer hearing was presided over by family court Judge Samuel McAdam. However, new legal challenges arose when Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 1391, which prohibits juveniles under age 16 from being tried in adult court.
SB 1391 was opposed by prosecutors and by Maupin and Northup’s families. The California District Attorneys Association held a press conference, which was led by Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig and Sacramento County DA Anne Marie Schubert, in early September 2018, urging Governor Brown to veto SB 1391. The press conference featured family members of Maupin and Northup. Prosecutors wrote in a letter to Governor Brown: “Senate Bill 1391 eliminates the authority for a court to decide whether a 14- or 15-year-old charged with certain serious offenses is unfit for the juvenile system.” The letter also contained information on Marsh, who had “savagely tortured and murdered an elderly couple in their home” and “methodically planned his attack, targeted the victims at random, and committed his heinous acts out of morbid curiosity.”
Governor Brown signed SB 1391 into law on September 30, 2018, right before Marsh’s transfer hearing began. In his signing message, Brown said that while victims’ testimony weighed on him, there was a need for “redemption and reformation wherever possible.” Brown also noted that: “Welfare and Institutions Code sections 1800 and 1800.5 allow either the Director of the Division of Juvenile Justice, or the Board of Juvenile Hearings, to petition for extended incarceration if a youth is deemed truly dangerous. This mechanism exists under current law, and has been used in the past when circumstances have warranted. It will continue to be used when needed, and there are no time limits prescribed in statute.”
Marsh’s defense team filed a motion for continuance of the hearing until after January when SB 1391 would be effective. Prosecutors argued against the motion, saying that the case was governed by current law. Judge Reed denied the defense’s motion and the hearing went forward. During the hearing, Marsh took the stand to argue for his case to stay in juvenile court. Prosecutors argued that Marsh should continue serving his adult sentence, as he was highly calculated in planning his crime, proclaimed that it gave him an exhilarating feeling, and tried on several occasions to commit more murders. Prosecutors called forensic psychologist and psychopathy expert Matthew Logan to take the stand. Logan testified that Marsh’s score on the Psychopathy Checklist was 35.8 out of 40, one of the highest he had ever seen. Maupin and Northup’s families also gave statements requesting that Judge McAdam reinstate Marsh’s adult sentence. Additionally, Davis citizens sent over 300 letters to the court opposing Marsh’s remand to the juvenile justice system.
On October 24, 2018, Judge McAdams ruled in favor of the prosecution and remanded Marsh to state prison to continue serving his adult sentence. In reaching his decision, McAdams considered the circumstances and gravity of the offense, the degree of criminal sophistication, Marsh’s prior delinquent acts, Marsh’s capacity for rehabilitation while in juvenile court jurisdiction, and Marsh’s success of prior rehabilitation attempts. “By his own admission his main objective was to remain undetected and to become a serial killer,” McAdams stated. “This was a highly sophisticated, extraordinary, and rare crime even for the most hardened and seasoned adult criminal.” McAdams also stated: “There is no question that the crimes here were committed by a psychopath who was also suffering a mental illness. The more difficult question is whether Marsh is still a psychopath with criminal desires and whether that personality trait can be rehabilitated. As both experts pointed out, most psychopaths are not criminals.”
On January 1, 2019, SB 1391 went into effect. On November 13, 2018, Marsh filed an extraordinary writ seeking review of the order of transfer. The issue raised was whether McAdams had abused discretion by holding the transfer hearing before SB 1391 went into effect. Marsh’s defense team also argued that the court improperly shifted the burden on Marsh to show that he was fit for juvenile court treatment and misapplied the applicable time period to rehabilitation. The writ was denied on December 6. On December 14, Marsh filed a petition for review from the order denying writ with the California Supreme Court. The petition raised the same issues as the writ. On February 13, 2019, the California Supreme Court issued an order denying the writ without prejudice to any relief under SB 1391. In the summer of 2019, Marsh’s attorney filed an appeal, asking for his murder conviction to be overturned retroactively due to SB 1391.
In O.G. v. The Superior Court of Ventura County, the California Supreme Court determined whether or not SB 1391 conflicts with Proposition 57. Proposition 57 gave sole authority to juvenile court judges to determine whether a juvenile age 14 and older should be tried in adult criminal court. The proposition expressly authorized the Legislature to amend the measure as long as the amendments are "consistent with and further the intent" of the act. Opponents of SB 1391 argue that it unconstitutionally amended Proposition 57 by repealing prosecutors' authority to seek the transfer of 14 and 15-year-old offenders to adult court. Proponents of SB 1391 argue that the law does not conflict with Proposition 57 and that keeping 14 and 15-year-old offenders out of adult court is good public policy. On February 25, 2021, the California Supreme Court upheld SB 1391.
Marsh’s attorneys argue that SB 1391 should apply retroactively to him as judgment in his case is not finalized. The California Attorney General’s Office and the Yolo County prosecutors argue that SB 1391 does not apply to Marsh. Judgment in Marsh’s case, they say, became final with an appellate ruling in June 2018 before SB 1391 took effect. Prosecutors also argue that Marsh remains an “extreme danger.” Oral arguments before the Third District Court of Appeal were held on August 18, 2021. In September, the Third District Court dismissed Marsh's appeal. Had the court determined that SB 1391 applied in Marsh's case, Marsh, now aged 24, would be released from incarceration upon reaching his 25th birthday.
Aftermath
The murders of Maupin and Northup attracted national attention and were featured on the 48 Hours program. On May 16, 2018, a YouTube video of Marsh giving a Ted Talk was uploaded. In the talk, which is titled “Embracing our Humanity,” Marsh spoke of alleged hardships he had experienced and declared that he was reformed and deserving of another chance. He also stated: “I came to realize that there are no such things as evil people in this world. Only damaged people.” The video was deeply upsetting to Maupin and Northup’s families and was taken off YouTube within two days.
Marsh remains incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego and is eligible for parole after serving 25 years of his life sentence.
References
2013 murders in the United States
April 2013 events in the United States
American torture victims
Murder committed by minors
Murder in California
People murdered in California
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The Japan–Korea Undersea Tunnel (also Korea–Japan Undersea Tunnel) is a proposed tunnel project to connect Japan with South Korea via an undersea tunnel crossing the Korea Strait using the strait islands of Iki and Tsushima, a straight-line distance of approximately at its shortest.
The proposal, which has been under discussion intermittently since 1917, was followed with more concrete planning during the early 1940s. It was not pursued, however, until after World War II.
In early 2008, the proposal came under renewed discussions by 10 senior Japanese lawmakers who established a new committee to pursue it. This was followed by a study group from both countries in early 2009 that agreed to form a committee for the creation of specific construction plans. Committee head Huh Moon-do, a former director of South Korea's National Unification Board and a key member of the former Chun Doo-hwan government, said the tunnel would help regional economics and would "play a key role in pursuing bilateral free trade talks" that are currently stalled.
The proposed tunnel would be more than long and able to serve a portion of freight traffic, as well as some of the approximately 20,000 people who travel daily between the countries.
Proposal history
Early origins
A very early discussion on such a tunnel was conducted in 1917 by then-Imperial Japanese Army General Staff officer Kuniaki Koiso. Another early proposal for the project originated in the late 1930s as part of the Greater East Asia Railroad. In 1938, Imperial Japan's Ministry of Communications reportedly decided on a preliminary survey of the sea bottom between Japan and Korea. During World War II the Imperial Japanese government actively pursued the project to connect it with the Korean Peninsula and, ultimately, with the rest of the Asian continent.
In 1939, a Japanese Railway official, Yumoto Noboru, wrote of a trans-Eurasian railway to link Japan to its Axis partner, Germany, and proposed the construction of an undersea tunnel to connect Japan with Korea via the island of Tsushima. It was argued a combined undersea tunnel and land link would help safeguard Japanese communications and shipments to and from Europe, which would be imperiled by a Pacific War.
Noboru's writing was joined in the same year by a recommendation from a Mr. Kuwabara, who would later assist in the creation of the undersea Seikan Tunnel, currently the world's longest undersea tunnel. In 1939, Kuwabara made the same recommendation of tunneling across the strait and connecting to a 'Cross Asian Railway'. Studies were soon conducted by the Japanese government on a possible Kampu (Shimonoseki-Busan) tunnel between the Japanese home islands and South Korea. The plan came under serious consideration starting in 1941.
In September 1940 the Japanese Cabinet issued its overview "Outline of National Spatial Planning" study which outlined its long-term goals for the development of its occupied conquests and spheres of influence in Asia, which it termed the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere". It further refined its plans with the outbreak of hostilities with the United States, bent on increasing its geopolitical and ethnic ties with mainland Asia through a vastly expanded rail and marine network, with special emphasis on the Korean peninsula land bridge to connect it with its colonies. To achieve its objectives, Japan's plans called for "a giant leap forward" in its transportation and communications infrastructures, including shinkansen trains, so that it could integrate all of its colonial economies and ensure the transport of war materials and other necessary supplies to and from the home islands. This coincided with the planning and development of the dangan ressha ("bullet train") system by a Japanese chief rail engineer, Shima Yasujiro, who concurred on the links between Tokyo, Korea, and China.
In 1941, geological surveys were conducted on Tsushima Island and test bores were sunk to close to Kyūshū. By August 1942, Japan's South Manchurian Railway Company had created plans for an rail network stretching from Manchukuo to Singapore. Against this backdrop, Japan took its first concrete step for a fixed link to and through Korea to connect it with its planned vast rail network in Asia, with the construction of several bridges as well as the completion of its Kanmon undersea railway tunnel joining the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Honshu.
Although preliminary work on rail lines, bridges, and tunnels in southern Japan was started, work on the project stopped in a few years as the nation's economy and infrastructure deteriorated due to World War II. After 1943, with increasing shortages of materials, manpower, and even transportation, Japan canceled its raumordnung (spatial plan) for its vast new Asian rail infrastructure, as it turned its full-time attention to defending its home islands from invasion. Its land planning organization was discontinued in 1943; its staff was transferred to the Japanese Home Ministry.
Activities since World War II
The proposal for a fixed link between the two countries has been raised in public discussions numerous times since the end of World War II. Leaders of both countries have called for the tunnel's construction on a number of occasions.
Starting in the 1980s, a Japanese research group has been engaged in detailed research and exploration of prospective routes for the tunnel. In 1988, the Japanese researchers contracted a Korean company to explore the sea off of Koje to document the region's geological features.
In September 2000, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung (김대중) said a review should be performed of the project that could enable all of Japan to be linked to Europe, as "a dream of the future." Kim's comments came during a summit meeting with Japan's then-Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori (森 喜朗). The following month Mori proposed moving ahead with the project at the Seoul summit of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM); however, Korea and Japan stopped short of committing it as an official bilateral project.
By early 2002, the South Korean Ministry of Construction and Transportation had commissioned three research institutes to study the project's feasibility. Also in 2002 Japanese experts had estimated that the tunnel would take 15 years and cost US$77 billion to complete. Around that time (mid-2002), an easing of relations between North and South Korea gave impetus to the Japan–Korea-tunnel project. The North and South Korean governments had agreed on an inter-Korean rail line to run from Seoul to Pyongyang and then on to Sinuiju, a border city in the north on the Yalu River, as well as a road running parallel to the railway. From Sinuiju trains could then cross the border and access the Trans-Chinese Railway (TCR), and then Russia's Trans-Siberia Railway (TSR) which would lead on to all of Europe's rail networks.
In September 2002, a five-member Japanese delegation visited South Gyeongsang Governor Kim Hyuk-kyu of Korea's southeastern provincial government to discuss the proposal of an undersea tunnel. The legislative group from Japan was headed by Daizō Nozawa (), a future Japanese Cabinet Minister of Justice who was then a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) legislator in Japan's House of Councilors. Nozawa, then a key figure involved in Japanese civil engineering projects, toured Korea's Geoje region. This visit marked a starting point on the contemplated tunnel on the South Korean side, officials at the regional government stated. The same month saw comments by Alexander Losyukov, Russia's vice foreign minister for Asia-Pacific affairs, raising discussion on the tunnel project and saying that it was "something for the distant future, but feasible".
The tunnel proposal was again brought forward in the recent era by Japan's 91st Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda (). At an August 2009 meeting of the International Highway Foundation in Japan which was addressed by Huh Moon-doh of South Korea, a video was shown of a half-kilometer long test tunnel excavated from Karatsu toward Korea. The foundation also conducted geophysical research on the sea bottom in the Tsushima and Iki Islands areas. Addressing the congregation Huh stated a serious interest in the project, made more attractive by the economic activity it would generate for both countries in the middle of 2009's deepening economic recession. But Huh interjected that "....there are still deep and lingering anxieties among Korean citizens over closer connections with Japan," referring to centuries of warfare between the nations dating back to Japan's invasions of the peninsula in the 16th century, almost mirroring that of Britain and France. Huh also commented on the growing possibility of Chinese economic hegemony in the region which could be blunted by greater South Korean and Japanese cooperation. "The tunnel connecting the two nations would be the very symbol of such cooperation", Huh reiterated.
In October 2009, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (鳩山 由紀夫) visited Seoul and had discussions that led to two proposals: an undersea tunnel between Japan and South Korea being one of those. It was announced at the conclusion of his meetings that a research group from the two countries would convene in January 2010 to establish a tunnel building committee. Speaking earlier at the United Nations General Assembly, Hatoyama indicated that the recent changes in Japan would help his nation be a "bridge" to the world. To build a unity of nations, Hatoyama wanted to establish an East Asian Community similar to the European Union. An undersea tunnel between the two countries would help establish that unity.
Notable supporters
Former South Korean President Lee Myung-bak (), inaugurated as president in February 2008, expressed a willingness to consider the project, unlike his immediate predecessor Roh Moo-hyun. Former Japanese Defence Minister and long-term Diet member Seishiro Etō was quoted after a meeting with other interested lawmakers from various parties: "This is a dream-inspiring project" and "We'd like to promote it as a symbol of peace-building." Japanese legislators stated that the tunnel could "...one day allow passengers to travel by rail from Tokyo to London".
Other South Korean presidents who have publicly supported the fixed-link have included Roh Tae-woo and Kim Dae-jung. Japan's former Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa discussed the economic stimulus benefits of large infrastructure programs such as the Channel Tunnel, in light of the grave economic crisis his country and the region was experiencing in 2009.
Former Ministers of Justice Daizo Nozawa, president of the Japan–Korea Tunnel Research Institute, and Kim Ki-Chun, a former executive member of the Korea-Japan Parliamentarians Union, have been significant supporters of the project, saying: "any engineering challenges [to building the tunnel] can be met with present technology." They cautioned, however, that "Far more daunting is the historic psychological barrier between the two countries. There is no better way to bring people together than to engage them in a project requiring all their efforts."
Similarly, Professor Shin Jang-cheol of Soongshil University in Korea has promoted the project, stating that "...the tunnel will stimulate business, ease tension and promote political stability in East Asia. It will also have a positive impact on the reunification of the Korean Peninsula." Shin further commented on the project's positive aspects by noting that it would encourage a joint Free Trade Zone by improving the region's general transportation infrastructure.
A noted long-time proponent of the tunnel project was South Korea's Sun Myung Moon (문선명), the late Korean founder and leader of the worldwide Unification Church. Moon proposed a "Great Asian Highway" as early as November 1981 at the 10th International Conference of the Unity of the Sciences and helped establish several related committees over the next three years. Moon helped create the International Highway Construction Corporation (IHCC) in April 1982 to build the tunnel project and other transportation infrastructures, motivated by the project's potential for promoting international harmony and world peace.
Moon was the inspiration of the late highly respected Japanese scientist Eizaburo Nishibori, who was a major proponent for the current impetus on the tunnel project. He became motivated upon hearing Reverend Sun Myung Moon's proposal for this tunnel in 1981 at the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences meeting in Seoul, South Korea. Nishibori subsequently helped organized the Japan–Korea Tunnel Research Institute which has performed major research and assisted in the selection of the three new proposed tunnel routes.
In October 2010, a group of 26 Korean and Japanese scholars of the Joint Research Committee for a New Korea-Japan Era, led by Ha Young-sun of Seoul National University and Masao Okonogi of Keio University, released the findings of their study: "A Joint Study Project for the New Korea-Japan Era". The research study made specific policy proposals in order to improve both countries' bilateral relations, and among the study's suggestions was a call to build the undersea tunnel in order to link the two countries together.
Additionally, in August 2014, business organizations representing South Korea's and Japan's largest companies announced there was a "need to raise public interest for the undersea tunnel plan that could link South Korea to Japan by rail", as well as increasing tourism between the countries. Representatives of the Federation of Korean Industries and Nippon Keidanren stated that increased tourism between their two lands could "help overcome past differences and help fuel domestic spending in both countries", while the proposed undersea tunnel could create ₩54 trillion won (54T원, or US$53 billion) in economic benefits. It could provide about 45,000 jobs, according to the Busan Development Institute. While that announcement was made at a meeting held in the South Korean capital, Seoul, the Keidanren portion of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations in Tokyo announced their support for efforts to increase "more civilian exchanges and foster better relations" between the two cultures by increased tourism and trade.
Opposition party leader Kim Chong-in expressed his support for the tunnel in February 2021.
Proposed routes
An early post–World War II proposal called the "Korea-Japan Friendship Tunnel System", had tunnels running between Korea and Japan, extending from the Korean port city of Busan (connect with Korail) to the Japanese city of Fukuoka on Kyūshū (connect with Sanyo Shinkansen), via four islands in the Strait.
Since approximately 1988, three newer routes have been proposed for the project by the Japan–Korea Tunnel Research Institute Society (founded by the Korean Unification Church), with all three having the most eastern point terminating at Karatsu, Saga Prefecture, on the Japanese island of Kyūshū. The proposed western termination points are in the Korean port city of Busan (부산광역시) for one of the routes, and the city of Geoje (거제시) for the other two routes, with all three routes running across the strait islands of Tsushima and Iki. Combined tunnel-island traverses for the three routes range from 209 to 231 kilometers to cross the Korea Strait (both the eastern Tsushima Kaikyō and the western Busan Strait). Those distances would be far longer than the undersea Channel Tunnel that connects Britain to France.
In early 2009 the joint study group stated that the route would almost certainly begin at Karatsu in Japan's Saga Prefecture and likely travel to Geoje Island on the Korean shore. If the tunnel travels between Karatsu and Geoje, it would span a length of , with an undersea distance of , making it the longest such tunnel in the world.
One of the new proposals calls for a combination road and rail link from Karatsu on Kyushu Island and terminating at Busan, the second largest city in South Korea. Of the three tunnel routes under consideration, the favoured design was a combination bridge from Karatsu to Iki Island, followed by a 60 km tunnel to the central portion of Tsushima Island, and then a 68 km tunnel roughly westward to Busan at an estimated cost of approximately 10 to 15 trillion yen ($111 billion to $157 billion).
Other options would see the final tunnel portion constructed from Tsushima to Geojedo Island off the Korean coast, and then to Masan on the peninsula, with two tunnel designs under consideration. One version would be similar to the Channel Tunnel, which employs a service and emergency tunnel between its two train tunnels. The other design would have a single large diameter tunnel for both road and train traffic. Long highway tunnels have in the past been criticized for their inherent safety issues involving serious auto accidents, as have been experienced in European tunnels.
Potential benefits, costs and possible issues
In the mid-1980s, the tunnel's approximate cost was estimated at US$70 billion, with the Japan–Korea Tunnel Research Institute placing it between approximately ¥10 and ¥15 trillion (Japanese yen). The proposed tunnel project would provide a savings of about 30 percent in costs of transporting goods between the countries.
The tunnel would benefit passenger travel, with travel times around 5 hours Seoul–Osaka (1040 km) and 7 hours Seoul–Tokyo (1550 km). This would offer South Korea a chance to redefine and expand its tourism industry to include other cities and destinations besides Seoul, as the tunnel would serve as a gateway for tourists to travel with ease to and from the peninsula. The tunnel would assist in the creation of the proposed BESETO (Beijing–Seoul–Tokyo) Highway Plan which would connect six megacities (Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing, Seoul, Osaka and Tokyo), each having a population of greater than 10 million people.
By 2002, a preliminary Japanese study had reported that the costs of freight transported through the tunnel would be one-fourth of those related to traditional maritime shipping, and that shipments from Japan to Europe, via the Eurasian Land Bridge, would arrive faster than the 20 days for seaborne transport.
Others have debated the tunnel project. The Korean news media outlet Chosunilbo reported in 2007 that construction would cost between ₩60 and ₩100 trillion (Korean won) and take 15 to 20 years to construct. This is more than five times the cost and three times the construction time of the tunnel between Britain and France. Opponents of the project say that Korea would gain little from such a tunnel, which would principally help Japan expand its economic and political influence into the Asian continent.
According to professor Park Jin-hee of the Korea Maritime University, in the period before 2007 it cost $665 to ship a container from Osaka to Busan. With an undersea tunnel, the estimated price would drop to $472, a saving of almost 30%. Further economic benefits would be gained if North Korea would permit trains to cross through it into China, from where trains could then access the Trans-Chinese Railway to the Trans-Siberian Railway to Europe. An additional proposal raised in 2009 suggested the construction of a second tunnel from Pyeongtaek at the north end of South Korea, tunneling westward to Weihai in China's Shandong Province, completely bypassing North Korea, whose government has been seen as volatile and temperamental. Such a Yellow Sea tunnel would cover a distance of .
However, negative views of the tunnel's profitability emerged the same year. Japanese Studies Professor Shin Jang-churl, of Seoul's Soongsil University, stated that the countries' political proposals were "....nothing but [empty] diplomatic rhetoric." Key issues for the tunnel would be its enormous construction cost combined with possible low profitability, similar to the Eurotunnel's financial situation since it opened in 1994.
In early 2009, the new joint study group identified that the construction costs alone would be ¥10 trillion by a Japanese estimate and almost ₩200 trillion by a Korean estimate. A Japanese report showed the tunnel would not be economically feasible, which was similar to another study conducted by the Koreans.
However, the group pointed out that the tunnel is economically feasible if decision-makers included the effects of job creation and the project's ability to revive the construction industry. Korea would see a ₩13 trillion addition to its construction industry, and Japan's increase would be ₩18 trillion. With industrial effects, the group forecast that Korea would see economic benefits worth ₩54 trillion and ₩88 trillion for Japan.
In 2011, a new study released by South Korea's Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs Ministry, referring to studies by the government's Korea Transport Institute (KOTI), reported that the proposed tunnel project, as well as another proposed tunnel project from the northwest of South Korea to neighbouring China (which would bypass North Korea) were economically non-feasible. The KOTI studies cited the estimated combined construction costs for both projects at about ₩100 trillion (approx. US$90 billion), which would produce an extremely low benefit-to-cost result.
In 2014, the South Korean Busan Development Institute estimated the undersea tunnel could create ₩54 trillion won (원54T, or US$53 billion) in economic benefits and provide about 45,000 jobs.
Comparison to the Anglo-French Channel Tunnel
In an April 2009 editorial, former Justice Ministers Daizō Nozawa of Japan and Kim Ki Chun of South Korea remarked on some of the similarities of the proposed Japan–Korea tunnel to the Anglo-French tunnel. The Channel Tunnel runs for 50.45 km linking the United Kingdom and France, and opened in May 1994: At 37.9 km, the tunnel has the longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world. The Japan–Korea tunnel faces technical issues and similarly the mistrust of two former adversaries created by centuries of conflict. However, the UK and France were able to overlook their historical divide and link themselves, setting the stage for a major change in their relationship.
The addition of the fixed link to Europe, once believed to be "impossible to build and financially impractical", resulted in numerous positive changes to both the U.K. and mainland Europe. Among the most significant was the loss of a key psychological barrier (akin to an "island mentality"), that previously held back many Britons and other Europeans from travelling to each other's nations, according to Kim and Nozawa.
A veritable new industry subsequently sprang up to serve Britons wanting to buy properties in European countries. Fifteen years after opening the Channel Tunnel, it was estimated that 300,000 French citizens were living in London, helped in part by reasonably priced Eurostar fares and service that is almost completely immune to bad weather and heavy seas. The Channel Tunnel is seen as an important asset to the entire European Union's infrastructure, placing Brussels less than two hours from central London, with central Paris taking only 15 minutes longer to reach. It has "greatly facilitated integration of the region." The Japan-Korea Cooperation Committee, composed of business organizations and academics, similarly concluded in August 2009 that "the undersea tunnel may contribute to the integration process of Northeast Asia."
That fixed link allows hundreds of thousands of citizens to move and work more freely in each other's countries, and has allowed for greater economic growth. In contrast, northeast Asia, also one of the world's fastest growing economies, experiences a lower degree of internal political cohesion partly due to its poorer intraregional transportation links. This observation was similarly noted after a two-day meeting in late 2008 by the Japan–Korea Cooperation Committee of business leaders and academics that reported "the undersea tunnel may contribute to the integration process of Northeast Asia", helping to establish an Asian economic sphere of several hundred million-plus people.
Politically and economically, both tunnels could be viewed as symbols of regional integration, with former French President François Mitterrand once stating: "The Channel Tunnel... is nothing less than a revolution...."
Nozawa and Kim further claimed that the Channel Tunnel was instrumental in redirecting how the peoples of different cultures and nationalities view each other, something they hope that the Japan–Korea fixed link will accomplish to reverse centuries of conflict and mistrust between their countries. As with the Channel Tunnel, the Japan–Korea tunnel would be regarded as a prime political symbol and proof of intraregional cooperation.
For the Japan–Korea fixed link project to proceed, it must, after decades of informal talks and private research, similarly move into formal bilateral discussions and agreements.
Associated difficulties
Societal
The Japanese and the South Korean public have reservations toward closer links with each other. Some South Koreans have strong memories of the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Urban Planning Professor Hur Jae-wan of Seoul's Chung-Ang University argued that for the tunnel to become politically viable it would be essential for the project to gain significant support from both countries' citizenry, stating:
In the mid-2000s, disputes over history, territory and policies aimed at North Korea had brought the two countries' relations to a low point, and deepened their mistrust in each other. Professor Shin Jang-churl of Soongsil University in Seoul advised that it was essential for consensus to be reached by both Japanese and South Korean nationals on the relevant issues that divided them.
Political
Japan and South Korea tend to favor large infrastructure projects, so this project might seem to be fairly obvious politically, but this project has been the target of far right/nationalist political groups in both countries. Many South Koreans have advised caution in proceeding with the project due to worries of firms in the much larger Japanese economy becoming more dominant in South Korea due to the lower logistical expenses the tunnel would provide; this increased economic power would further expand the political power of Japan in the region. Similarly, many Japanese firms worry it may expand the increasing dominance of Korean firms in sectors such as consumer electronics. China's increasing dominance in the region may, eventually, minimize these concerns making the project politically viable, but this is not yet the case.
In the early 2000s, Japan's relationship with South Korea soured when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited his country's Yasukuni shrine several times, an action deemed offensive to many Koreans. Another contentious issue may be the territorial dispute over the Liancourt Rocks islets (Dokdo/Takeshima) to the northeast of the strait, which have long been claimed by both parties but under South Korean control since 1952 which the Japanese government regards as an illegal occupation. Japan has at least three times proposed the dispute be referred to the International Court of Justice, but Korea has rejected those proposals.
Aside from the power politics that exist between Tokyo, Seoul, Pyongyang, and Beijing, other policy issues that could restrict a tunnel between Japan and Korea include regulatory barriers such as different rail transport regulations, border controls, and trade policies.
Segments
Minimum Distances (incl. island linked by bridge or existing tunnel) (Google Earth maps as source)
Busan/Taejongdae Park to North Tsushima 30.6mi/49.2 km across relatively deep Tsushima Trough (~200 meters max depth)
Geoje to North Tsushima 34.5mi/55.5 km across relatively deep Tsushima Trough. (~190 meters max depth)
Cutting through scenic, rugged, and heavily forested Tsushima, from Busan landing site, 36 mi/58 km (subtotal 107.2 km)
Cutting through scenic, rugged and heavily forested Tsushima, from Geoje landing site, 32.5 mi/52.4 km (subtotal 107.9 km)
Southern Tsushima to Iki Island (~125 meters max depth, 29.4 mi/47.2 km)
Across Iki Island (similarly scenic, less rugged, more mixed valleys, hills and forest) 15 km
From Iki Island to Kyushu's closest headland offshore island (15.5 km, max depth ~55 meters)
From there to railhead across Karatsu Bay, some 24 km, or alternatively but more circuitous, Nishi-Karatsu Station, 19.5 km, heading towards major cities such as Fukuoka. Bridges or tunnels would be required over relatively shallow waters.
Any shipping ports in these areas to interconnect with systems.
Note: It is certainly possible that parts, especially less complicated portions of the whole project may be completed in isolation without the entire project being realized, shaving need for longer sea travel for passengers or cargo.
Competing projects
A joint China-Russia project to connect Hunchun, already connected to high speed rail network, with Zarubino port in Primorski Krai, Russia, would allow Chinese imports/exports to find an alternative freeze-free port that shaves a seaborne 1000 km on a transpacific route. Rason, North Korea is similarly only 60 km away from Hunchun.
See also
Japan–Korea relations
Jeju Undersea Tunnel
KTX
Sakhalin–Hokkaido Tunnel, a proposed Russia–Japan undersea tunnel and possible competitor to the Japan–Korea tunnel project
Trans-Asian Railway
Trans Global Highway/Japan–Korea Tunnel
Transloading
Tunnel boring machine
References
Footnotes
Citations
Bibliography
Lee, Man-Hyung & Kwon, Hyuk-Il. Status Quo and Conflicting Factors for the Proposed Korea-Japan Tunnel Project, Chung, Hee-Soo and Soo-Young Park, eds., Local Development and Planning in the 21st Century, Seoul: Eastern Regional Organization for Planning and Housing, 2001, pp. 33–44.
Further reading
Chosun Ilbo. Korea-China Tunnel Could Generate W275 Trillion, Chosun Ilbo, October 9, 2009.
Fumihiko, Ito(Penta-Ocean Constr. Co., Ltd.), Keiichi, Kobayashi(Taisei Corp.), Takashi Kashima(Japan Railway Constr. Public Corp.), Yoichi, Wakasugi(Penta-Ocean Constr. Co., Ltd.), Kazuhiko Daito(Chizaki Kogyo Co., Ltd.), (1999) Construction of submarine railway tunnel with "tenoned segments of largest diameter made in Korea", Accession number 99A0878939, Proceedings of Annual Conference of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers. Journal Code: S0330B, Vol. 54, pp. 122–123, published in Japanese;
Kim, D.H and W.H. Park, W.H. Experiment by Using Reduced Scale Models for the Fire Safety of a Rescue Station in Very Long Rail Tunnel in Korea, Track and Civil Engineering Research Department, Korea Railroad Research Institute, Republic of Korea, published online February 24, 2006.
External links
Japan–Korea Tunnel Research Institute (Japanese)
Original Trans-Global Highway Proposal
International Highway and Japan-Korea Undersea Tunnel Project -History of the International Highway Project, International Highway Construction Corporation (IHCC) website,
Proposed undersea tunnels in Asia
Japan–Korea relations
Railway tunnels in Japan
Coastal construction
Transport in South Korea
Rail transport in South Korea
Water transport in South Korea
Tunnels in South Korea
Unification Church political involvement
Proposed transport infrastructure in Asia
Proposed transport infrastructure in South Korea
Japan–South Korea border
Technology articles needing translation from Japanese Wikipedia
Proposed tunnels in Japan
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Human rights in Australia have largely been developed under Australian Parliamentary democracy through laws in specific contexts (rather than a stand-alone, abstract bill of rights) and safeguarded by such institutions as the independent judiciary and the High Court, which implement common law, the Australian Constitution, and various other laws of Australia and its states and territories. Australia also has an independent statutory human rights body, the Australian Human Rights Commission, which investigates and conciliates complaints, and more generally promotes human rights through education, discussion and reporting.
Universal voting rights and rights to freedom of association, freedom of religion and freedom from discrimination are protected in Australia. The Australian colonies were among the first political entities in the world to grant universal manhood suffrage (1850s) and female suffrage (1890s). Contemporary Australia is a liberal democracy and heir to a large post-World War II multicultural program of immigration in which forms of racial discrimination have been prohibited.
As a founding member of the United Nations, Australia assisted in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it is signatory to various other international treaties on the subject of human rights. Australia is the only democratic country in the world without a national bill of rights of some kind. Racism in Australia traces both historical and contemporary racist community attitudes, as well as political non-compliance and alleged governmental negligence on United Nations human rights standard and incidents in Australia.
An ongoing human rights issue in Australia is the legacy of mistreatment of Indigenous Australians, who are disproportionately of disadvantaged socioeconomic standing, have shorter life spans, and make up a disproportionately high number of imprisoned persons, thus receiving disproportionately high levels of social welfare payment as well as preferential employment and tertiary educational placement in state sectors. In 2016–17, the estimated direct expenditure per person was $44,886 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, which was around twice the rate for non-Indigenous Australians ($22 356).
Sources of rights
As Australia does not have a Bill of Rights to implement all international human rights, some states have implemented their own charters. For example, in Queensland, in Victoria, and in the ACT. As such, other sources of rights exist to protect rights in Australia (the Constitution, through statutes, common law, and through implementation of international treaties).
Australian Constitution
Human rights are protected under the Australian Constitution in several ways:
Self-determination is protected by the creation of a system of responsible government chosen by the people in the form of the Australian Parliament;
Section 41 provides a right to vote;
Section 51(xxiii) prohibits civil conscription in relation to medical and dental services;
section 51(xxxi) empowers the Commonwealth to acquire property only "on just terms";
Section 80 provides a right to a jury trial for indictable offences;
Section 92 protects freedom of interstate trade, commerce and communication among the States;
Section 116 prohibits the Commonwealth from passing laws establishing religion, imposing religious observance, or requiring a religious test for qualification for public office;
Section 117 prohibits discrimination on the basis of State residence.
In addition, as a result of certain structural implications and principles, the Constitution protects human rights indirectly through several means, including:
An implied freedom of political communication on government and political matters;
A requirement that punishment (and, with some exceptions, imprisonment) only occur pursuant a court order, arising from the separation of powers;
A requirement that courts be independent and impartial from the executive and legislature;
The right to challenge the legality of government action for jurisdictional error, even where legislation purports to preclude judicial review.
Statutes
Human rights are protected through various statutory enactments in a broad variety of specific contexts. For example, there are statutes which prescribe and regulate police powers, use of personal information, secret recording of conversations, equal treatment when buying goods and services, consumer rights, and many other statutes.
Common law
The common law of Australia protects rights indirectly through various causes of action (such as in contract, tort, and property rights). The common law also protects human rights through principles of statutory interpretation. One example is found in Gleeson CJ's statement that it is presumed that it is not Parliament's intention to remove a fundamental human right(s) or freedom(s) unless such an intention is outlined and manifested by clear language. This is known as the principle of legality which acts as an extra layer of protection for human rights against vague or ambiguous legislation. Furthermore, Former Chief Justice of New South Wales, James Spigelman, has compiled a list of a number of rights-depriving acts which the common law presumes the legislature does not intend without clear wording, including retrospectively changing rights and obligations, infringing personal liberty, interfering with freedom of movement or speech, restricting access to the courts, interfering with vested property rights, and denying procedural fairness.
In addition, there are various common law principles which afford certain protections, such as legal professional privilege, and the privilege against self-incrimination.
International Human Rights Laws in Australia
Australia has signed various international treaties and conventions regarding human rights. Australia has agreed to be bound by the following treaties:
Universal Declaration on Human Rights
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Convention on the Political Rights of Women
International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination
Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Convention on the Rights of the Child
Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness
Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees
1926 Slavery Convention
Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Although Australia is a signatory to these, the rights given in the treaties are only applicable in Australia if domestic legislation is established. For example, the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth), implements the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth), provides some of the rights outlined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
However, another way the rights provided in a treaty can be seen in Australian law is where provisions of a treaty are already a part of domestic legislation (for example, the Convention of the Rights of People of Disabilities can be seen as incorporated into domestic law through similar provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth)).
Australian Human Rights Commission
The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) (previously known as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission) is a national independent statutory body of the Australian government. Established under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth), it has responsibility for the investigation of alleged infringements under Australia’s anti-discrimination legislation.
Matters that can be investigated by the Commission include discrimination on the grounds of age, race, colour or ethnic origin, racial vilification, sex, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital or relationship status, actual or potential pregnancy, breastfeeding or disability.
However, the protection of human rights has several significant limitations. For instance, human rights will often trump other public goods as it enjoys a prima facie; human rights may be violated in some circumstances or reasons like national emergency or security; human rights are protected in various States (ACT and Victoria) through legislation. However, it cannot be implemented nor enforceable at the Federal level.
Civil and political rights
Freedom of expression
Under the Australian Constitution, there is an implied freedom of political communication on government and political matters.
Some restrictions on political expression exist in Australia, including laws on defamation, racial vilification, and contempt of Parliament.
In 2015, Tasmania's Anti Discrimination Commissioner found that the Catholic Church and the Archbishop of Hobart had a "case to answer" under Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination legislation for promoting the Catholic view of marriage. Australian Greens candidate Martine Delaney brought the matter to the Commission. The ABC reported that case has "raised concerns about freedom of speech ahead of a national debate on same-sex marriage."
In 2007, Parliamentarian Lee Rhiannon of the Australian Greens referred remarks made by an Australian Catholic Cardinal opposing embryonic stem cell research to the New South Wales parliamentary privileges committee for allegedly being in "contempt of parliament". The Cardinal was cleared of the charge and described the move as a "clumsy attempt to curb religious freedom and freedom of speech".
Voting rights
Australians achieved voting rights decades before most other Western nations. The Australian colonies granted universal manhood suffrage from the 1850s and in 1895 the women of South Australia achieved the right to both vote and stand for Parliament, enabling Catherine Helen Spence to be the first to stand as a political candidate in 1897. After federation of the colonies in 1901, the Franchise Act 1902 was passed, granting the right to vote to men and women. However, the Act also restricted votes for 'natives' unless they were already enrolled. These restrictions were unevenly applied and were relaxed after World War II, with full rights restored by the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962.
In 1856, an innovative secret ballot was introduced in Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, in which the government supplied voting paper containing the names of candidates and voters could select in private. This system was adopted around the world, becoming known as the "Australian Ballot". The use of proportional representation via Single Transferable Vote (STV) and majoritarian Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in many state/territory upper and lower houses as well as the federal Senate and House of Representatives respectively. These democratic features are upheld by rankings in Freedom House, Democracy Index and Polity IV as well as processes, proceedings and conduct being regulated by federal and state Electoral Commissions.
In South Australia, Premier Don Dunstan progressively introduced the Age of Majority (Reduction) Bill in October 1970, the voting age in South Australia was lowered to 18 years old in 1973.
Women's rights
As mentioned above Women's suffrage was granted in 1902 and property rights in 1897. The first woman elected to any Australian Parliament was Edith Cowan, to the West Australian Legislative Assembly in 1921. Dame Enid Lyons, in the Australian House of Representatives and Senator Dorothy Tangney became the first women in the Federal Parliament in 1943. In 1971, Senator Neville Bonner became the first Aboriginal Australian to sit in the federal Parliament. Rosemary Follett was elected Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory in 1989, becoming the first woman elected to lead a state or territory. In 2010, Julia Gillard became the first female Prime Minister of Australia.
By 2010, the people of Australia's oldest city, Sydney, had female leaders occupying every major political office above them, with Clover Moore as Lord Mayor, Kristina Keneally as Premier of New South Wales, Marie Bashir as Governor of New South Wales, Julia Gillard as Prime Minister, Quentin Bryce as Governor General of Australia and Elizabeth II as Queen of Australia.
Australia has laws banning gender, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, breastfeeding and pregnancy discrimination, providing for equal access to services (such as parental leave, education and child care), advancing reproductive rights (through universal healthcare and laws surrounding reproductive rights), outlawing of sexual harassment, marital rape, female genital mutilation, child marriage and legalisation of no-fault divorce.
The first Australian state to deal with marital rape was South Australia, under the progressive initiatives of Premier Don Dunstan, which in 1976 partially removed the exemption. Section 73 of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act Amendment Act 1976 (SA) read: "No person shall, by reason only of the fact that he is married to some other person, be presumed to have consented to sexual intercourse with that other person".
The role of women in the Australian military began to change in the 1970s. In 1975, which was the International Year of Women, the service chiefs established a committee to explore opportunities for increased female participation in the military. This led to reforms which allowed women to deploy on active service in support roles, pregnancy no longer being grounds for automatic termination of employment and changes to leave provisions.
Despite being integrated into the military, there were still restrictions on female service. The ADF was granted an exemption from the Sexual Discrimination Act when it was introduced in 1984 so that it could maintain gender-based restrictions against women serving in combat or combat-related positions, which limited women to 40 percent of positions in the ADF. As a result of personnel shortages in the late 1980s the restriction against women in combat-related positions was dropped in 1990, and women were for the first time allowed to serve in warships, RAAF combat squadrons and many positions in the Army. Women were banned from positions involving physical combat, however, and were unable to serve in infantry, armoured, artillery and engineering units in the Army and clearance diving and ground defence positions in the RAN and RAAF respectively.
On 27 September 2011, Defence Minister Stephen Smith announced that women will be allowed to serve in frontline combat roles by 2016. Women became able to apply for all positions other than special forces roles in the Army on 1 January 2013; it is planned that this remaining restriction will be removed in 2014 once the physical standards required for service in these units are determined. Women will be directly recruited into all frontline combat positions from late 2016.
Capital punishment
The last use of the death penalty in Australia was in Victoria in 1967. Ronald Joseph Ryan was hanged at Pentridge Prison on 3 February 1967 for the murder of a prison guard, George Hodson. However, Australian criminologist, Gordon Hawkins, director of Sydney University's Institute of Criminology, doubts that Ryan was guilty.
Capital punishment was officially abolished for federal offences by the Death Penalty Abolition Act 1973. The various states abolished capital punishment at various times, starting with Queensland in 1922 and ending with New South Wales in 1985.
In South Australia, under the premiership of then-Premier Don Dunstan, the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (SA) was modified so that the death sentence was changed to life imprisonment in 1976.
People with a disability
Discrimination against persons with disabilities in various contexts is prohibited under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (DDA). The Act makes it unlawful to treat a disabled person less favorably, or to fail to make reasonable adjustments for the person, in the contexts of employment, education, publicly available premises, provision of goods and services, accommodation, clubs and associations, and other contexts. Complaints made under the DDA are made to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
The Australian Government requested the Productivity Commission to evaluate the effectiveness of the DDA, and the Commission published its findings in 2004. The Commission found that while there is still room for improvement, particularly in reducing discrimination in employment, overall the DDA has been reasonably effective. The Commission found that people with a disability were less likely to finish school, to have a TAFE or university qualification and to be employed. They are more likely to have a below average income, be on a pension, live in public housing and in prison. The average personal income for people with a disability is 44 per cent of the income of other Australians.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme, is a healthcare program initiated by the Australian government. The bill was introduced into parliament in November 2012. In July 2013 the first stage of National Disability Insurance Scheme (which was at the time called DisabilityCare Australia) commenced in South Australia, Tasmania, the Hunter Region in New South Wales and the Barwon area of Victoria, while the Australian Capital Territory commenced in July 2014.
On 15 September 2020, the Human Rights Watch released a report examining the serious risk of self-harm and death for prisoners with mental health conditions. Media reports between 2010 and 2020 found that about 60 per cent of adults, who died in prisons in Western Australia, had disabilities, including mental health conditions. Of the 60 per cent, 58 per cent died due to lack of support, suicide, or after becoming a target of violence, where half of these deaths were of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners.
Treatment of particular groups and minorities
Indigenous Australians
The wellbeing of Indigenous Australians is an ongoing issue in Australia.
There is significant disparity in health between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. In 2010–2012, the estimated life expectancy at birth for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males was 69.1 years, and for females 73.7 years. This was 10.6 years lower than the life expectancy of non-Indigenous males, and 9.5 years lower than that of non-Indigenous females. A 2006 study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showed that 70% of the Aboriginal population die before the age of 65, compared with 20% of non-Indigenous Australians. Additionally, the suicide rate among Aboriginal Australians is almost three times higher (at 4.2%) than the national average (1.5%).
The roots of the present condition can be traced to the historical treatment of Aboriginal people and the dispossession of land that occurred following European colonisation of Australia, where a combination of disease, loss of land (and thus food resources) and violence decimated the Aboriginal population. Later, from the 1830s, colonial governments established the now controversial offices of the Protector of Aborigines in an effort to avoid mistreatment of Indigenous peoples and conduct government policy towards them. Christian churches in Australia sought to convert Aboriginal people, and were often used by government to carry out welfare and assimilation policies.
The Caledon Bay crisis of 1932–4 saw one of the last incidents of frontier violence, which began when the spearing of Japanese poachers who had been molesting Yolngu women was followed by the killing of a policeman. As the crisis unfolded, national opinion swung behind the Aboriginal people involved, and the first appeal on behalf of an Indigenous Australian to the High Court of Australia was launched. Elsewhere around this time, activists like Sir Douglas Nicholls were commencing their campaigns for Aboriginal rights within the established Australian political system and the age of frontier conflict closed.
In 1962, the Menzies Government's Commonwealth Electoral Act provided that all Indigenous Australians should have the right to enrol and vote at federal elections (prior to this, Indigenous people in Queensland, Western Australia and some in the Northern Territory had been excluded from voting unless they were ex-servicemen). The successor Holt Government called the 1967 Referendum which removed the discriminatory clause in the Australian Constitution which excluded Aboriginal Australians from being counted in the census – the referendum was one of the few to be overwhelmingly endorsed by the Australian electorate (over 90% voted "yes").
From the 1960s, Australian writers began to re-assess European assumptions about Aboriginal Australia – with works including Geoffrey Blainey's landmark history Triumph of the Nomads (1975) and the books of historian Henry Reynolds.From the late 1960s a movement for Aboriginal land rights developed, especially in South Australia under the Premiership of Don Dunstan. This era saw vast reformation in regards to land rights, anti-discrimination and personal rights.
In the mid-1960s, one of the earliest Aboriginal graduates from the University of Sydney, Charles Perkins, helped organise freedom rides into parts of Australia to expose discrimination and inequality. In 1966, the Gurindji people of Wave Hill station (owned by the Vestey Group) commenced strike action led by Vincent Lingiari in a quest for equal pay and recognition of land rights.
The Whitlam Labor and Fraser Liberal Governments instigated the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976, which, while limited to the Northern Territory, affirmed "inalienable" native title to some traditional lands. In 1985, the Hawke Government returned ownership of Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) to the local Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal people.
Indigenous Australians began to take up representation in Australian parliaments during the 1970s. In 1971 Neville Bonner of the Liberal Party was appointed by the Queensland Parliament to replace a retiring senator, becoming the first Aborigine in Federal Parliament. Bonner was returned as a Senator at the 1972 election and remained until 1983. Hyacinth Tungutalum of the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory and Eric Deeral of the National Party of Queensland, became the first Indigenous people elected to territory and state legislatures in 1974. In 1976, under the recommendation of Premier Don Dunstan, Sir Douglas Nicholls was appointed Governor of South Australia, becoming the first Aborigine to hold vice-regal office in Australia. Aden Ridgeway of the Australian Democrats served as a senator during the 1990s, but no Indigenous person was elected to the House of Representatives, until West Australian Liberal Ken Wyatt, in August 2010.In 1992, the High Court of Australia handed down its decision in the Mabo Case, recognising native title. That same year, Prime Minister Paul Keating said in his Redfern Park Speech that European settlers were responsible for the difficulties Australian Aboriginal communities continued to face. In 1999 Parliament passed a Motion of Reconciliation drafted by Prime Minister John Howard and Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway naming mistreatment of Indigenous Australians as the most "blemished chapter in our national history".
Prior to the calling of a 2007 federal election, the then Prime Minister, John Howard, revisited the idea of bringing a referendum to seek recognition of Indigenous Australians in the Constitution (his government first sought to include recognition of Aboriginal peoples in the Preamble to the Constitution in a 1999 referendum). The Labor opposition initially supported the idea; however, Kevin Rudd withdrew this support just prior to the election.
In 2007, Prime Minister John Howard and Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough launched the Northern Territory National Emergency Response. In response to the Little Children are Sacred Report into allegations of child abuse among Indigenous communities in the Territory, the government banned alcohol in prescribed communities in the Northern Territory; quarantined a percentage of welfare payments for essential goods purchasing; despatched additional police and medical personnel to the region; and suspended the permit system for access to Indigenous communities. The policy was largely maintained under the Rudd and Gillard Governments.
Notable contemporary Indigenous rights campaigners have included: federal politicians Ridgeway and Wyatt, lawyer Noel Pearson; academic Marcia Langton; and Australians of the Year Lowitja O'Donoghue (1984), Mandawuy Yunupingu (1992), Cathy Freeman (1998) and Mick Dodson (2009). As of 2016, there were five Indigenous people serving in the Federal Parliament of Australia.
An annual report called "Closing the Gap" is presented to the parliament by the office of Prime Minister and Cabinet and it details the gap in multiple facets of life disproportionately affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people compared to non-Indigenous including education, life expectancy, infant mortality, employment, housing and criminal justice. Despite a decade of action though, the life expectancy gap continues to widen with only marginal if any improvements in other sectors of Indigenous affairs and according to Oxfam "they are still denied the same access to these services that non-Indigenous people take for granted".
On 30 October 2019, Ken Wyatt, Minister for Indigenous Australians in the Morrison Government, announced the commencement of a "co-design process" aimed at providing an Indigenous voice to government. The Senior Advisory Group (SAG) is co-chaired by Professor Tom Calma , Chancellor of the University of Canberra, and Professor Dr Marcia Langton, Associate Provost at the University of Melbourne, and comprises a total of 20 leaders and experts from across the country. There was some skepticism about the process from the beginning, with the criticism that it did not honour the Uluru Statement from the Hearts plea to "walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future". According to Michelle Grattan, "...it is notable that it is calling it a 'voice to government' rather than a 'voice to parliament' ". Prime Minister Scott Morrison rejected the proposal in the Uluru Statement for a voice to parliament to be put into the Australian constitution; instead, the voice will be enshrined in legislation. The government also said it would run a referendum during its present term about recognising Indigenous people in the constitution "should a consensus be reached and should it be likely to succeed”.
Immigrants and asylum seekers
Australia is an immigrant nation with a large and longstanding multi-ethnic migration program.
Historically, from the 1890s to the 1950s the country adhered to the White Australia Policy, which effectively barred or impeded people of non-European descent from immigrating to Australia. The policy was dismantled by successive governments after World War II, and from the 1970s successive governments officially supported multiculturalism. Australia is a signatory to the Refugee Convention and a component of the Australian immigration program is devoted to providing protection for refugees. The majority of refugees received by Australia are identified and referred by the UNHCR. The Special Humanitarian Program further offers refuge to people subject to "substantial discrimination amounting to gross violation of human rights in their home country" and who are supported by a proposer within Australia. In 2009–10 a total of 13,770 visas were granted under these categories. The annual figure remained roughly stable for the years between 2004–2010 and accepted applicants from such nations as Myanmar, Iraq, Bhutan, Afghanistan and six African countries.
To varying degrees of success, recent Australian governments have sought to discourage unauthorised arrivals by people seeking refugee status in Australia by maintaining a system of mandatory detention for processing of people who arrive without a visa. In 1992, Australia adopted a policy of under which the Australian government could detain any person in the country without a valid visa. In 1994 the detention of 'unlawful non-citizens' was made mandatory. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, these unauthorised arrivals, popularly referred to as "boat people", were transferred to one of the Australian immigration detention facilities on the Australian mainland, or to Manus Island or Nauru as part of the Pacific Solution. These offshore processing and mandatory detention policies have attracted criticism. In 2014, the Australian Human Rights Commission published a report, which found that many basic rights outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child were denied to children living in immigration detention.
Australia's immigration regime has attracted the ire of the United Nations Human Rights Council for "massive abuse [...] of irregular migrants", by suspending habeas corpus, separating families, indefinite detention of irregular migrants and inadequate reception/medical centres. and whilst Australia "remains in active discussions" with the Refugees and Safe, Orderly & Regular Migration components of the Global Compacts on Migration, Prime Minister Morrison stated that the compact will "fundamentally weaken Australia's strong border protection" and will not sign it.Medical evacuation (Medevac) laws have since been passed by parliament. However, Medevac laws have become a point of contention as the local Medevac centre in Kangaroo Point, Brisbane has sparked mass protests after becoming a detention centre that has detained refugees in Brisbane for more than seven years.
Human Rights Watch’s annual human rights report outlined issues in Australia spanning refugee policy, the treatment of Indigenous people and climate change action. The federal government's failure to address the cruel treatment of asylum seekers despite international pressure tarnishes the country's global standing.
LGBTI people
Historical persecution
Prior to European contact, there were no known legal or social punishments for engaging in homosexual activity. Sex seems to have been a very open topic among the Indigenous people. Among the Arrernte people, sex plays were particularly ubiquitous, even among young children who would play "mothers and fathers" in a very literal sense. They would typically mimic the sex acts they saw their parents and other adults perform. These acts seem to have been performed regardless of sex. Traditions of "boy-wives" also existed where young boys, typically 14 years of age, would serve as intimate servants of older men until they reached the age of initiation, at which point the young man would have his penis subincised. The Indigenous people did not have the typical Western view of heterosexuality and homosexuality.
As part of the British Empire, Australian colonies inherited anti-homosexuality laws such as the Buggery Act of 1533. These provisions were maintained in criminal sodomy laws passed by 19th century colonial parliaments, and subsequently by state parliaments after Federation. Same-sex sexual activity between men was considered a capital crime, resulting in the execution of people convicted of sodomy until 1890.
Different jurisdictions gradually began to reduce the death penalty for sodomy to life imprisonment, with Victoria the last state to reduce the penalty in 1949. Community debate about decriminalising homosexual activity began in the 1960s, with the first lobby groups Daughters of Bilitis, Homosexual Law Reform Society and the Campaign Against Moral Persecution formed in 1969 and 1970.
Decriminalisation
In October 1973, former Prime Minister John Gorton put forward a motion in the federal House of Representatives that "in the opinion of this House homosexual acts between consenting adults in private should not be subject to the criminal law". All three major parties were given a conscience vote, and the motion was passed by 64 votes to 40:
However, Gorton's motion had no legal effect as the legality of homosexuality was a matter for state and territory governments. Over a 22-year span between 1975 and 1997, the states and territories gradually repealed their sodomy laws as support for gay law reform grew.
Nonetheless, under the premiership of Premier Don Dunstan, LGBT rights in South Australia expanded, and South Australia became the first jurisdiction to decriminalise male homosexual activity on 17 September 1975, with the Australian Capital Territory's decriminalisation, first proposed in 1973, approved by the Fraser Federal Government with effect from 4 November 1976. Victoria followed on 23 December 1980, although a "soliciting for immoral purposes" provision added by conservatives saw police harassment continue in that state for some years.
Other jurisdictions to decriminalise male homosexuality were the Northern Territory (effective 4 October 1983), New South Wales (22 May 1984) and (after four failed attempts) Western Australia (7 December 1989). In exchange for decriminalisation, Western Australian conservatives required a higher age of consent and an anti-proselytising provision similar to the United Kingdom's section 28, both since repealed.
Queensland legalised male same-sex activity with effect from 19 January 1991 after the long-standing Nationals government had lost power.
The Tasmanian Government refused to repeal its sodomy law, which led to the case of Toonen v Australia, in which the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled that sodomy laws violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Tasmania's continued refusal to repeal the offending law led the Keating Government to pass the Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act 1994, which legalised sexual activity between consenting adults throughout Australia and prohibited laws that arbitrarily interfered with the sexual conduct of adults in private.
In the 1997 case of Croome v Tasmania, Rodney Croome applied to the High Court of Australia to strike down the Tasmanian anti-gay law as inconsistent with federal law; after having failed to have the matter thrown out, the Tasmanian Government decriminalised homosexuality on 1 May 1997, becoming the final Australian jurisdiction to do so.
In late 2010, the Gillard Labor Government announced that it was undertaking a review of federal anti-discrimination laws, with the aim of introducing a single equality act that would include sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2011, the government introduced new guidelines which would enable sex- and gender-diverse people to record their preferred gender in their passports.
In March 2013, Mark Dreyfus introduced the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Status) Bill, and on 25 June 2013, the Australian Federal Parliament passed it with overwhelming support in both houses. The Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Status) Act 2013 became law from Royal Assent three days later by the Governor-General. It became effective from 1 August 2013, making discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and for the first time in the world, intersex people, illegal at a national level. Aged care providers who are owned by religious groups would no longer be able to exclude people from aged care services based on their LGBTI or same-sex relationship status. However, religion-based private schools and hospitals are exempt from gender identity and sexual orientation provisions. No religious exemptions exist on the basis of intersex status.
The content of laws relating to the equality of LGBT people is summarised in the following table:
Intersex people
Australia was the first country to conduct a parliamentary inquiry into involuntary or coerced medical interventions on intersex people in October 2013, but the report has not been implemented.
A 2016 Family Court case authorising a gonadectomy and consequential surgery on a young child attracted public commentary for disclosing those medical interventions, their rationales, and a prior clitorectomy and labiaplasty.
In March 2017, Australian and New Zealand community organizations issued a joint call for legal reform, including the criminalization of deferrable intersex medical interventions on children, an end to legal classification of sex, and improved access to peer support.
References
External links
The Australian Human Rights Commission website
NSW Council for Civil Liberties
National Human Rights Consultation
The Equality Campaign (Same-sex marriage advocacy group)
Privacy in Australian law
Australian society
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David Khari Webber Chappelle (; born August 24, 1973) is an American stand-up comedian and actor.
He is known for his satirical comedy sketch series Chappelle's Show (2003–2006). The series, co-written with Neal Brennan, ran until Chappelle quit the show in the middle of production of the third season. After leaving the show, Chappelle returned to performing stand-up comedy across the U.S. By 2006, Chappelle was called the "comic genius of America" by Esquire and, in 2013, "the best" by a Billboard writer. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him No. 9 in their "50 Best Stand Up Comics of All Time".
Chappelle has appeared in several films, including Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), The Nutty Professor (1996), Con Air (1997), You've Got Mail (1998), Blue Streak (1999), Undercover Brother (2002), Chi-Raq (2015), and A Star Is Born (2018). His first lead role was in the 1998 comedy film Half Baked, which he co-wrote with Neal Brennan. Chappelle also starred in the ABC comedy series Buddies (1996). In 2016, he signed a $20-million-per-release comedy-special deal with Netflix and released six stand-up specials under the deal.
He has received numerous accolades, including five Emmy Awards and three Grammy Awards as well as the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Chappelle received his first Emmy in 2017 for his guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. In 2018, he received a Grammy Award for his Netflix-produced comedy album The Age of Spin & Deep in the Heart of Texas. Equanimity, another Netflix special featuring Chappelle, was nominated in 2018 for three Emmys and received the award for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded). In 2019, Chappelle was selected to receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, which is presented by the Kennedy Center as America's highest comedy honor. In 2020, Sticks & Stones earned Chappelle his third consecutive Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
Early life
David Khari Webber Chappelle was born on August 24, 1973, in Washington, D.C. His father, William David Chappelle III, was a professor of vocal performance and the dean of students at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. His mother, Yvonne Seon (née Reed, formerly Chappelle), worked for Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, is a Unitarian Universalist minister, and has been a professor and university administrator at several institutions including Wright State University and Prince George's Community College. Chappelle has a stepmother and a stepbrother.
Chappelle grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attended Woodlin Elementary School. His parents were politically active, and family house visitors included Pete Seeger and Johnny Hartman. Hartman predicted Chappelle would be a comedian and, around this time, Chappelle's comic inspiration came from Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. After his parents separated, Chappelle stayed in Washington with his mother while spending summers with his father in Ohio. In high school he worked as an usher in Ford's Theatre. In 1991, he graduated from Washington's Duke Ellington School of the Arts, where he studied theatre arts.
Career
Early career
Chappelle was featured in a montage of random people telling a joke in the first episode of ABC's America's Funniest People, airing on September 13, 1990. Chappelle moved to New York City to pursue a career as a comedian. He performed at Harlem's Apollo Theater in front of the "Amateur Night" audience, but he was booed off stage. Chappelle described the experience as the moment that gave him the courage to continue his show business aspirations. He quickly made a name for himself on the New York comedy circuit, even performing in the city's parks. In addition to weekend stand-up gigs, he also honed his craft at Monday night "open mic" performances at places like the Boston Comedy Club on W 3rd St., as late as the summer of 1994. In 1992, he won critical and popular acclaim for his television appearance in Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam on HBO. It was his appearance on this show that allowed his popularity to truly begin rising, eventually allowing him to become a regular guest on late-night television shows such as Politically Incorrect, Late Show with David Letterman, The Howard Stern Show, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Whoopi Goldberg nicknamed him "The Kid". At 19, he made his film debut as "Ahchoo" in Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He also appeared on Star Search three times but lost to competing comedian Lester Barrie; Chappelle later joked about becoming more successful than Barrie. The same year, Chappelle was offered the role of Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue in Forrest Gump. Concerned the character was demeaning and the movie would bomb, he turned down the part. He parodied the film in the 1997 short Bowl of Pork, where a dim-witted black man is responsible for the Rodney King beating, the LA riots and OJ Simpson being accused of murder. Chappelle played another supporting role in an early Doug Liman film, Getting In, in 1994. At age 19, he was the opening act for R&B soul singer Aretha Franklin.
Chappelle attracted the attention of TV network executives and developed numerous pilots but none were picked up for development into a series. In 1995, he made a guest appearance on an episode of ABC's popular sitcom Home Improvement. The storyline had Chappelle and real-life friend and comedian Jim Breuer ask Tim Taylor for advice on their girlfriends. The characters' single outing in the episode proved so popular that ABC decided to give them their own spin-off sitcom titled Buddies. However, after taping a pilot episode, Breuer was fired and replaced with actor Christopher Gartin. Buddies premiered in March 1996 to disappointing ratings and the show was canceled after only five episodes out of 13 that had been produced.
After the failure of Buddies, Chappelle starred in another pilot. According to Chappelle, the network was uncomfortable with the African-American cast and wanted white actors added. Chappelle resisted and subsequently accused the network of racism. Shortly afterward, Chappelle's father died and after returning to Ohio, he considered leaving the entertainment business.
He later appeared as a stand-up insult comic who targets patrons of a nightclub in the 1996 comedy The Nutty Professor starring Eddie Murphy, one of his major comedic influences. He had a minor role in 1997's Con Air. At the beginning of 1998, he did a stand-up performance for HBO Comedy Half-Hour. That same year, he appeared in "Pilots and Pens Lost," an episode of The Larry Sanders Shows sixth season, in which he and the executives of the show's unnamed television network satirize the treatment that scriptwriters and show creators were subjected to, as well as the executives' knee-jerk tendencies toward racial stereotypes.
He and Neal Brennan co-wrote the 1998 cult stoner film Half Baked, Chappelle's first starring role, about a group of marijuana-smoking friends trying to get their other friend out of jail. It made money at the box office and remains a classic "stoner" film, a genre that includes the Cheech & Chong films as well as more recent fare like Judd Apatow's Pineapple Express. In December 1998, Chappelle appeared as Tom Hanks' character's friend and confidant in You've Got Mail. In 1999, he appeared in the Martin Lawrence film Blue Streak.
In 2000, Chappelle recorded his first hour-long HBO special, Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly, in Washington, D.C. He also starred alongside Norm Macdonald in the 2000 comedy film Screwed. He followed this up with an appearance as "Conspiracy Brother" in the 2002 racial satire Undercover Brother.
2003–2006: Chappelle's Show
In 2003, Chappelle debuted his own weekly sketch comedy show on Comedy Central called Chappelle's Show. The show parodied many aspects of American culture, including racial stereotypes, politics and pop culture. Along with comedy sketches, the show also featured musical performances by mostly hip-hop and soul artists. He promoted the work of other black comedians as well, most notably Paul Mooney and Charlie Murphy.
Due to the show's popularity, Comedy Central's new parent company Viacom offered Chappelle a $55 million contract (giving Chappelle a share of DVD sales) to continue production of Chappelle's Show for two more years while allowing him to do side projects. Chappelle has said that sketches are not his favorite form of comedy, and that the show's format was similar to short films.
In June 2004, based on the popularity of the "Rick James" sketch, it was announced that Chappelle was in talks to portray James in a biopic from Paramount Pictures, also owned by Viacom. James' estate disagreed with the proposed comical tone of the film and put a halt to the talks.
That same month, Chappelle recorded his second comedy special, this time airing on Showtime, Dave Chappelle: For What It's Worth, at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, where Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Robin Williams had performed.
Season 3 problems
In a June 2004 stand-up performance in Sacramento, California, Chappelle walked off the stage after berating his audience for constantly shouting "I'm Rick James, bitch!" which had become a catchphrase from his popular "Rick James" sketch. After a few minutes, Chappelle returned and resumed by saying, "The show is ruining my life." He stated that he disliked working "20 hours a day" and that the popularity of the show was making it difficult for him to continue his stand-up career, which was "the most important thing" to him. He told the audience:
Season 3 was scheduled to begin airing on May 31, 2005, but earlier in May, Chappelle stunned fans and the entertainment industry when he abruptly left during production and took a trip to South Africa. Chappelle said that he was unhappy with the direction the show had taken, and expressed in an interview with Time his need for reflection in the face of tremendous stress:
Immediately following Chappelle's departure, tabloids speculated that Chappelle's exit was driven by drug addiction or a mental problem, rather than the ethical and professional concerns that Chappelle had articulated.
Chappelle's decision to quit the show meant walking away from his $50 million contract with Comedy Central and forming a rift with longtime collaborator Neal Brennan.
The show still plays in syndication on several television networks, despite the relatively small number of episodes compared to most American syndicated television programs. Chappelle's abrupt departure from his show continues to be a focus of interviews and profiles of Chappelle and of Chappelle's own comedy. In Bird Revelation, Chappelle draws an analogy between his departure and the book Pimp, the memoir of Iceberg Slim.
2004: Dave Chappelle's Block Party
Chappelle was the star and a producer of the Michel Gondry-directed documentary Dave Chappelle's Block Party, which chronicles his hosting a free concert in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn on September 18, 2004. Several musical artists, including Kanye West, The Roots, Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Dead Prez and Jill Scott, are featured in the movie both performing in the concert and in conversation off-stage; Chappelle brought Yellow Springs residents to Brooklyn at his own expense. Another highlight of the event was the temporary reunion of 1990s hip-hop group The Fugees.
Chappelle toured several cities in February and March 2006 to promote the film under the name "Block Party All-Stars Featuring Dave Chappelle". Universal Pictures' genre division, Rogue Pictures, released the film in the U.S. on March 3, 2006. It was a success, grossing a total of $11.7 million on a $3 million budget.
2005–2013: Infrequent comedy appearances
In June 2005, Chappelle performed impromptu stand-up shows in Los Angeles, then went on a tour that began in Newport, Kentucky, not far from his Ohio home. On May 11, 2006, he made a prearranged, but quietly marketed, surprise appearance at Towson University’s annual Tigerfest celebration. He made another appearance on HBO's Def Poetry, where he performed two poems, titled "Fuck Ashton Kutcher" and "How I Got the Lead on Jeopardy!"
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired on February 3, 2006, Chappelle explained his reasons for quitting Chappelle's Show. He also expressed his contempt for the entertainment industry's tone-deafness regarding black entertainers and audiences:
Chappelle was interviewed for Inside the Actors Studio on December 18, 2005, at Pace University's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts. The show premiered on February 12, 2006. Four days earlier, he had introduced the musical tribute to Sly Stone at the 48th Annual Grammy Awards.
Chappelle said on Inside the Actors Studio that the death of his father seven years prior influenced his decision to go to South Africa. By throwing himself into his work, he had not taken a chance to mourn his father's death. He also said the rumors that he was in drug or psychiatric treatment only persuaded him to stay in South Africa. He said,
Chappelle said that he felt some of his sketches were "socially irresponsible." He singled out the "pixie sketch" in which pixies appear to people and encourage them to reinforce stereotypes of their races. In the sketch, Chappelle is wearing blackface and is dressed as a character in a minstrel show. According to Chappelle, a white crew member laughed during its filming in a way that made him uncomfortable, saying "It was the first time I felt that someone was not laughing with me but laughing at me."
During this time, Chappelle did not rule out returning to Chappelle's Show to "finish what we started," but promised that he would not return without changes to the production, such as a better working environment. He wanted to donate half of the DVD sales to charity. Chappelle expressed disdain at the possibility of his material from the unfinished third season being aired, saying that to do so would be "a bully move," and that he would not return to the show if Comedy Central were to air the unfinished material. On July 9, 2006, Comedy Central aired the first episode of Chappelle's Show: The Lost Episodes. After the DVD release, Chappelle was interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN and reiterated he would not return to Chappelle's Show. An uncensored DVD release of the episodes was made available on July 25.
Chappelle has been known to make impromptu and unannounced appearances at comedy venues, and continues to do so following his post–Chappelle's Show return to stand-up comedy.
In April 2007, Chappelle set a stand-up endurance record at the Laugh Factory Sunset Strip comedy club, beating comedian Dane Cook's record of three hours and 50 minutes. In December of the same year, Chappelle broke his own record with a time of six hours and 12 minutes. Cook reclaimed the record in January 2008, with a time of seven hours. On November 19, 2009, Chappelle performed at the Laugh Factory again, where it was speculated that he would attempt to take back the record. However, according to the club owner, he was disqualified after he left the stage five hours into his routine.
Chappelle again appeared on Inside the Actors Studio and, in celebration of the show's 200th episode, he interviewed the show's usual host, James Lipton. The episode aired on November 11, 2008. He appeared again on Inside the Actors Studio in 2013, for its 250th episode.
In February 2009, Chappelle did a four-hour set at Comic Strip Live in New York.
In August 2011, Chappelle appeared at Comedy Jam in San Francisco.
2013–2017: Career comeback
In August 2013, Chappelle returned to full-time touring stand-up, as a headliner, when he was featured during the Oddball Comedy & Curiosity festival. Sponsored by Funny or Die, Chappelle co-headlined with comedy act Flight of the Conchords.
During a stop in Hartford, Chappelle walked off the stage due to heckling from the crowd that lasted throughout his entire performance. The heckling was so raucous that it drowned out Chappelle's voice over the P.A. system and included chants of "White Power", a line used in a Chappelle's Show episode, that was viewed as wildly uncalled-for and out-of-context by other audience members who later wrote about the event. A few days later, Chappelle stopped in Chicago for a performance. The comedy website ComedyHype.com acquired and released audio of him on stage responding to the heckling. Chappelle referenced the Hartford incident, stating that "young, white, alcoholic[s]" should be blamed for the prior incident, that he hoped North Korea would bomb Hartford, that in the future he would not stop in Hartford for gas, and finally summarizing his feelings on the situation by saying, "Fuck Hartford!" However, in August 2014 Chappelle returned to Hartford for a surprise appearance at the 2014 Oddball Festival and received multiple standing ovations during his set.
In June 2014, Chappelle made his first major New York City appearance in eleven years, performing ten nights at Radio City Music Hall. Chappelle promoted the dates by appearing on The Today Show, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Show with David Letterman.
In 2015, Chappelle appeared in the Spike Lee film Chi-Raq, his first film role in 13 years.
On November 12, 2016, Chappelle made his hosting debut on Saturday Night Live the weekend of Donald Trump winning the 2016 presidential election. The show also featured A Tribe Called Quest as the musical guest. In his opening monologue, Chappelle tackled Trump and the election head on. He ended his monologue by stating, "I'm wishing Donald Trump luck, and I'm going to give him a chance, and we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too." His performance on SNL received widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike. At the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, he received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his appearance. He donated the Emmy to his former high school while filming an episode of Jerry Seinfeld's Netflix series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (Season 10, Episode 2: "Nobody Says, 'I Wish I Had A Camera'").
On November 21, 2016, Netflix announced that they would be releasing three new stand-up comedy specials from Chappelle in 2017, with Chappelle being paid $20 million per special. The first two specials were released on Netflix on March 21, 2017, and hail directly from Chappelle's personal comedy vault. "Deep in the Heart of Texas" was filmed at Austin City Limits Live in April 2015, and "The Age of Spin" was filmed at the Hollywood Palladium in March 2016. The specials marked the comedian's first concert specials released in 12 years, and proved to be an immediate success as Netflix announced a month later that they were the most viewed comedy specials in Netflix's history.
The third special, Equanimity, was filmed in September 2017 at the Warner Theater in Washington, D.C., and then on November 20, 2017, Chappelle filmed a fourth special, The Bird Revelation, at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles. On December 22, 2017, Netflix announced the expansion of the deal to include The Bird Revelation, which was released with Equanimity on December 31.
2018–present
In January 2018 at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards, Chappelle received a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for his first two 2017 specials The Age of Spin & Deep in the Heart of Texas. In September 2018, Chappelle's Equanimity special received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded). In October 2018, Chappelle returned to the big screen as "Noodles", Jackson Maine's best friend and retired musician in Bradley Cooper's directorial debut, a remake of A Star Is Born. The film was a massive critical and commercial success. He was nominated along with the cast for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in a Motion Picture. In 2018, Chappelle and Jon Stewart joined forces for a duo comedy tour in the United States, and across the United Kingdom. He has also collaborated with Aziz Ansari for three stand-up shows in Austin, Texas at the Paramount Theater.
In February 2019, Chappelle was nominated for and won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for Equanimity and Bird Revelation.
In 2019, Chappelle was chosen to receive the annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor presented by The Kennedy Center. President of the Kennedy Center Deborah Rutter stated "Dave is the embodiment of Mark Twain's observation that 'against the assault of humor, nothing can stand'... and for three decades, Dave has challenged us to see hot-button issues from his entirely original yet relatable experience." The set of people honoring Chappelle included Jon Stewart, Bradley Cooper, Morgan Freeman, Lorne Michaels, Tiffany Haddish, Aziz Ansari, Sarah Silverman, Neal Brennan, Q-Tip, Mos Def, John Legend, Frederic Yonnet, Erykah Badu, Common, SNL cast members Kenan Thompson, Michael Che and Colin Jost, as well as Eddie Murphy. The Prize was awarded at the Kennedy Center gala on October 27, 2019. The ceremony was broadcast on PBS January 7, 2020. The Mayor of the District of Columbia, Muriel Bowser, declared the day of the award ceremony "Dave Chappelle Day" in Washington, D.C.
On August 26, 2019, Chappelle's fifth Netflix special, Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones, was released. The special garnered controversy (received an average score of 5.70 by Rotten Tomatoes critics), receiving backlash for jokes about abuse allegations against singers Michael Jackson and R. Kelly, as well as for jokes about the LGBTQ+ community and about “cancel culture”. However it received overwhelming praise from audiences (with a 99% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and in 2020, Sticks & Stones won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
On June 12, 2020, Netflix released 8:46, a 27-minute and 20-second video of newly recorded stand-up by Chappelle on the YouTube channel "Netflix Is a Joke". The private event was held outdoors on June 6, 2020, in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where audience members observed social distancing rules and wore masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The title was chosen in reference to the 8 minutes and 46 seconds that police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd, a black man, murdering him. Chappelle touches on Floyd's murder and subsequent protests and takes aim at Don Lemon, Laura Ingraham and Candace Owens.
Expanding on the concept of the socially distanced comedy presentation, beginning with a pair of performances in late June 2020 and officially kicking off with a Fourth of July celebration, "Chappelle and friends" hosted what became known as "Chappelle Summer Camp", which brought live performances to a masked, socially distanced audience at Wirrig Pavilion, in Yellow Springs, Ohio. These shows featured regular performances from comedians Michelle Wolf, Mohammed Amer and Donnell Rawlings, as well as Chappelle's tour DJ, DJ Trauma and frequent special guests including Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, Louis CK, Sarah Silverman, David Letterman, Bill Burr, Michael Che, Brian Regan, Chris Tucker, Kevin Hart, Ali Wong, Trevor Noah, Tiffany Haddish, with musical guests John Mayer, Common, and many others. After several shows in July, some issues arose from neighbors' complaints of noise and disturbances, local zoning officials granted a special variance allowing the performances to continue through October 4, 2020. The Chappelle Summer Camp series of shows ended suddenly September 25, 2020, when Elaine Chappelle announced in a closed Facebook fan group that there had been a possible COVID-19 exposure in their inner circle, and all further performances were cancelled.
It was announced that Chappelle would return to host Saturday Night Live the weekend of the 2020 United States presidential election giving yet again another post-election monologue. Due to the circumstances of voting during the COVID-19 pandemic, the results were delayed and announced earlier that Saturday. In response to Joe Biden defeating Donald Trump, Chappelle's offered jokes ranging from Trump's handling of the pandemic to his resultant legacy, and the political future of the United States, in his 16-minute opening monologue:
Critics and audiences praised the monologue describing it as "scathing", "illuminating", and "powerful."
On June 20, 2021, Chappelle joined Foo Fighters on-stage at Madison Square Garden to sing a cover version of Radiohead's "Creep".
On October 5, 2021, Chappelle starred in his sixth and final Netflix special The Closer. The special was met with backlash from the transgender community for Chappelle's jokes in the special. Calls for the removal of the special were rejected by Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, claiming freedom of artistic expression.
The upcoming documentary Dave Chappelle: Live in Real Life directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert will be released about Chappelle's concerts in Yellow Springs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The film premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in June 2021, followed by a series of roadshow events in the United States and Canada and a limited theatrical release on November 19, 2021.
Influences
In his interview with Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton, he said that his biggest influences in comedy are Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Mort Sahl, Chris Rock, Paul Mooney, and Mel Blanc.
When asked about his earliest influence in comedy, Chappelle said:
When asked about the biggest influence on him in comedy, Chappelle spoke of Richard Pryor:
Business
Chappelle's company, Iron Table Holdings purchased a Yellow Springs fire station and plans to open a comedy club. Chappelle retrofitted a Yellow Springs mechanic's garage into a clubhouse, dubbed “The Shack”, for podcasting.
Personal life
Chappelle married Elaine Mendoza Erfe in 2001. The couple have two sons, Sulayman and Ibrahim, and their daughter, Sanaa, and live on a farm near Yellow Springs, Ohio. Chappelle also owned several houses in Xenia, Ohio. He told Yellow Springs' residents in September 2006: "Turns out you don't need $50 million to live around these parts, just a nice smile and a kind way about you. You guys are the best neighbors ever. That's why I came back and that's why I'm staying."
Chappelle converted to Islam in 1991. He told Time in May 2005: "I don't normally talk about my religion publicly because I don't want people to associate me and my flaws with this beautiful thing. And I believe it is beautiful if you learn it the right way." Chappelle appears in a video explaining the religious history of the Well of Zamzam in Mecca.
His great-grandfather Bishop William D. Chappelle, born into slavery in 1857, served as a president of Allen University and led a delegation of African Americans who met President Woodrow Wilson at the White House. His great-great-grandfather Robert J. Palmer was a member of the South Carolina Legislature, then majority black, during Reconstruction. His grand-uncle W. D. Chappelle Jr. was a physician and surgeon who opened the People's Infirmary around 1915, a small hospital and surgery practice in Columbia, South Carolina, during a time when segregation prevented many African Americans from having access to healthcare.
Philanthropy
In 2004, he donated his time to Seeds of Peace International Camp, a camp located in Otisfield, Maine, which brings together young leaders from communities in conflict.
Chappelle supports his High School, Duke Ellington School of the Arts. He has financially contributed to the school over the years, visited and provided a commencement speech. During his acceptance speech at the 2017 Emmy Awards, Chappelle gave a shout-out to D.C. Public Schools. In November 2021, the school was set to rename their auditorium in Chappelle's honor. Following controversy in response to jokes made in The Closer, the renaming ceremony has been delayed until April 2022. Instead, Chappelle made an unannounced stop at the school to host a school assembly and Q&A session, asking only students who had an issue with Chappelle to come forward to ask questions. Following the assembly, the school decided to go forward with renaming the auditorium, respecting the wishes of school co-founder Peggy Cooper Cafritz.
Politics
Chappelle endorsed Andrew Yang in the 2020 United States presidential election.
In December 2021, Chappelle told the Yellow Springs, Ohio village council that he would cancel his planned business investments, including his restaurant and comedy club, if it approved a zoning change to allow a multifamily affordable housing project. The affordable housing had been negotiated between the village and the developer as a condition of approval for its plan to build 143 single-unit homes. On February 7, 2022, he again spoke up against the zoning change at the council meeting held to vote on the approval, calling the council "clowns" and reminding them that his business was worth $65 million a year. The council failed to approve the change, deadlocking at 2-2, with one recusal.
Filmography
Film
Television
Stand-up specials
Awards and accolades
Chappelle has received many awards and nominations for his work in stand-up and television including three consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album. He has also received five Primetime Emmy Awards and one Screen Actors Guild Award nomination along with the ensemble of A Star Is Born.
In 2017, Columbia, South Carolina Mayor Steven Benjamin declared February 3 "Dave Chappelle Day" when Chappelle spoke at the Chappelle Auditorium at Allen University, a building named after his great-grandfather, Bishop William David Chappelle, who worked at the university.
In 2019, Chappelle was awarded the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. Those to honor Chappelle at the event included Jon Stewart, Bradley Cooper, Aziz Ansari, Sarah Silverman, Chris Tucker, Frederic Yonnet and Lorne Michaels. The award ceremony was turned into a television special and released on Netflix and received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) nomination.
His work, as well as that of Margaret Cho, was also the subject of a book by Canadian dramaturg Elizabeth Ludwig, American Stand-Up and Sketch Comedy, that was published at the end of 2010.
References
External links
"Transcripts: Interview with Dave Chappelle". Anderson Cooper 360, July 7, 2006. CNN.
1973 births
Living people
20th-century African-American people
21st-century African-American people
20th-century American comedians
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20th-century American male actors
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20th-century Muslims
21st-century Muslims
African-American film producers
African-American male comedians
American male comedians
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American stand-up comedians
African-American television producers
American comedy writers
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Converts to Islam
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The huia (; Heteralocha acutirostris) is an extinct species of New Zealand wattlebird, endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. The last confirmed sighting of a huia was in 1907, although there were credible sightings into the 1960s.
It was already a rare bird before the arrival of Europeans, confined to the Ruahine, Tararua, Rimutaka and Kaimanawa mountain ranges in the south-east of the North Island. It was remarkable for having the most pronounced sexual dimorphism in bill shape of any bird species in the world. The female's beak was long, thin and arched downward, while the male's was short and stout, like that of a crow. Males were long, while females were larger at . The sexes were otherwise similar, with orange wattles and deep metallic, bluish-black plumage with a greenish iridescence on the upper surface, especially about the head. The tail feathers were unique among New Zealand birds in having a broad white band across the tips.
The birds lived in forests at both montane and lowland elevations – they are thought to have moved seasonally, living at higher elevation in summer and descending to lower elevation in winter. Huia were omnivorous and ate adult insects, grubs and spiders, as well as the fruits of a small number of native plants. Males and females used their beaks to feed in different ways: the male used his bill to chisel away at rotting wood, while the female's longer, more flexible bill was able to probe deeper areas. Even though the huia is frequently mentioned in biology and ornithology textbooks because of this striking dimorphism, not much is known about its biology; it was little studied before it was driven to extinction.
The huia is one of New Zealand's best-known extinct birds because of its bill shape, its sheer beauty and special place in Māori culture and oral tradition. The bird was regarded by Māori as (sacred), and the wearing of its skin or feathers was reserved for people of high status.
Taxonomy and etymology
The genus name, Heteralocha, derives from Ancient Greek ἕτερος "different" and ἄλοχος "wife". It refers to the striking difference in bill shape between male and female. The specific name, acutirostris, derives from Latin acutus, meaning "sharp pointed", and rostrum, meaning "beak", and refers to the beak of the female.
John Gould described the huia in 1836 as two species: Neomorpha acutirostris based on a female specimen, and N. crassirostris based on a male specimen—the epithet crassirostris derives from the Latin crassus, meaning "thick" or "heavy", and refers to the male's short bill. In 1840, George Robert Gray proposed the name N. gouldii, arguing that neither of Gould's names was applicable to the species. In 1850, Jean Cabanis replaced the name Neomorpha, which had been previously used for a cuckoo genus, with Heteralocha. In 1888 Sir Walter Buller wrote: "I have deemed it more in accordance with the accepted rules of zoological nomenclature to adopt the first of the two names applied to the species by Mr Gould; and the name Neomorpha having been previously used in ornithology, it becomes necessary to adopt that of Heteralocha, proposed by Dr Cabanis for this form."
The huia appears to be a remnant of an early expansion of passerines in the country of New Zealand, and is the largest of the three members of the family Callaeidae, the New Zealand wattlebirds; the others are the saddleback and the kōkako. The only close relative to the family is the stitchbird; their taxonomic relationships to other birds remain to be determined. A molecular study of the nuclear RAG-1 and c-mos genes of the three species within the family proved inconclusive, the data providing most support for either a basally diverging kōkako or huia.
Description
The huia had black plumage with a green metallic tinge and distinctive rounded bright orange wattles at the gape. In both sexes, the eyes were brown; the beak was ivory white, greyish at the base; the legs and feet were long and bluish grey while the claws were light brown. Huia had twelve long glossy black tail feathers, each tipped for with a broad band of white. Immature huia had small pale wattles, duller plumage flecked with brown, and a reddish-buff tinge to the white tips of the tail feathers. The beak of the young female was only slightly curved. Māori referred to certain huia as huia-ariki, "chiefly huia". The huia-ariki had brownish plumage streaked with grey, and the feathers on the neck and head were darker. This variant may have been a partial albino, or perhaps such birds were simply of great age. Several true albino huia were recorded. A white specimen painted by John Gerrard Keulemans around 1900 may have been the result of progressive greying or leucism, rather than albinism; the current whereabouts of this specimen are unknown.
Although sexual dimorphism in bill shape is found in other birds, such as the riflebirds, sicklebills and other wood-excavating birds including some species of woodpecker, it was most pronounced in the huia. The beak of the male was short at approximately and slightly arched downwards and robust, very similar to that of the closely related saddleback, while the female's beak was finer, longer at around , and decurved (curved downward) like that of a hummingbird or honeyeater. The difference was not only in the bone; the rhamphotheca grew way past the end of the bony maxilla and mandible to produce a pliable implement able to deeply penetrate holes made by wood-boring beetle larvae. The skulls and mandibles of the huia and saddleback are very similar, the latter essentially miniatures of the former.
There are two possible explanations for the evolution of this sexual difference in bill shape. The most widely supported is that it allowed birds of different sexes to utilise different food sources. This divergence may have arisen because of a lack of competitors in these foraging niches in the North Island forest ecosystems. The other idea is that the ivory-coloured bill, which contrasted sharply with the bird's black plumage, may have been used to attract a mate. In animals that use sexually dimorphic physical traits to attract a mate, the dimorphic feature is often brightly coloured or contrasts with the rest of the body, as with the huia. It has been suggested that as the female was the main provider of food for the chicks by regurgitation, this sex evolved the longer bill to obtain the protein-rich invertebrate diet required for the chicks.
Another, less obvious aspect of the huia's sexual dimorphism was the minor size difference between the sexes. Males were long, while females were larger at . Additionally, the tail of the male was about in length and the wingspan was between , while the female's tail was and the female's wingspan was .
Distribution and habitat
Subfossil deposits and midden remains reveal that the huia was once widespread in both lowland and montane native forest throughout the North Island, extending from the northernmost tip at Cape Reinga to Wellington and the Aorangi Range in the far south. Only a few huia are known from the extensive pitfall deposits in the karst of the Waitomo Caves area and they are also rare or absent in fossil deposits in the central North Island and Hawke's Bay; it seems to have preferred habitats that are not well sampled by the deposits known at present. The huia vanished from the northern and western North Island following Māori settlement in the 14th century, due to over-hunting, forest clearance, and introduced kiore preying on nests. By the time of European settlement in the 1840s it was only found south of a line from the Raukumara Range in the east, across the Kaimanawa Range, to the Turakina River in the Rangitikei in the west. In the south, its range extended to the Wairarapa and the Rimutaka Range east of Wellington. Reports collected by Walter Buller and a single waiata (Māori song) suggest that the huia was once also found in the Marlborough and Nelson districts of the South Island; however, it has never been identified in the rich fossil deposits south of Cook Strait, and there is no other evidence of the species' presence.
The huia inhabited both of the two principal forest types in New Zealand. They were primarily found in broadleaf-podocarp forests where there was a dense understorey, but occasionally also in southern beech (Nothofagus) forest. The species was observed in native vegetation including mataī (Prumnopitys taxifolia), rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum), kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides), northern rātā (Metrosideros robusta), maire (Nestegis), hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus), totara (Podocarpus totara), rewarewa (Knightia excelsa), mahoe (Melicytus ramiflorus), and taraire (Beilschmiedia tarairi), and at sea level in karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus) trees at Cape Turakirae. It was never seen in burnt forest or land cleared for farming.
Ecology and behaviour
Movements
The huia's movements are little known, but it was most likely sedentary. The huia is thought to have undertaken seasonal movements, living in montane forests in the summer and moving down into lowland forests in the winter to avoid the harsher weather and cold temperatures of higher altitudes. Like the surviving New Zealand wattlebirds, the saddleback and the kōkako, the huia was a weak flier and could only fly for short distances, and seldom above tree height. More often it would use its powerful legs to propel it in long leaps and bounds through the canopy or across the forest floor, or it would cling vertically to tree trunks with its tail spread for balance.
Feeding and ecology
The huia, with the previously endangered saddleback, were the two species of classic bark and wood probers in the arboreal insectivore guild in the New Zealand avifauna. Woodpeckers do not occur east of Wallace's line; their ecological niche is filled by other groups of birds that feed on wood-boring beetle larvae, albeit in rotting wood. The woodpecker-like role was taken on by two species in two different families in the New Zealand mixed-podocarp and Nothofagus forests; one was the huia and the other was the kaka.
The huia foraged mainly on decaying wood. Although it was considered a specialist predator of the larvae of the nocturnal huhu beetle (Prionoplus reticularis), it also ate other insects—including wētā—insect larvae, spiders, and fruit.
Insects and spiders were taken from decaying wood, from under bark, mosses and lichens, and from the ground. Huia foraged either alone, in pairs, or in small flocks of up to five, which were probably family groups. The sexual dimorphism of the bill structure gave rise to feeding strategies that differed radically between the sexes. The male used its adze-like bill to chisel and rip into the outer layers of decaying wood, while the female probed areas inaccessible to the male, such as the burrows of insect larvae in living wood. The male had well-developed cranial musculature allowing rotten wood to be chiselled and pried apart by "gaping" motions. There are corresponding differences in the structure and musculature of the head and neck between males and females. Huia had very well developed depressor jaw muscles, and an occipital crest that provided extra surface for muscle attachment, allowing the jaw to be opened with considerable force. Once the bird had secured a meal, it flew to a perch with the insect in its feet. The huia stripped its meal of any hard parts, then tossed the remainder up, caught, and swallowed it.
Pairs did not cooperate in feeding, at least not in a strict sense. All such reports are based on misunderstanding of an account by ornithologist Walter Buller of a pair kept in captivity obtaining wood-boring beetle larvae. According to this misunderstanding, which has become part of ecological folklore, the male would tear at the wood and open larval tunnels, thus allowing the female to probe deeply into the tunnels with her long, pliant bill. Rather, the divergent bills represent an extreme example of niche differentiation, reducing intraspecific competition between the sexes. This allowed the species to exploit a wide range of food sources in different microhabitats.
The New Zealand forest relies heavily on frugivorous birds for seed dispersal: about 70% of the woody plants have fruits that are probably dispersed by birds, which included the huia. The range of fruits eaten by the huia is difficult to establish: hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus), pigeonwood (Hedycarya arborea) and various species of Coprosma are recorded by Buller, and they were also recorded as eating the fruits of kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides). The extinction of the huia and other frugivorous New Zealand bird species including the moa and piopio, and the diminishing range of many others, including the kiwi, weka, and kōkako, has left few effective seed dispersers in the New Zealand forest. For plants with fruit greater than 1 cm in diameter, kereru are the sole remaining dispersers in the ecosystem, and they are rare or extinct in some areas. This depletion of avifauna in the forest ecosystem may be having major impacts on processes such as forest regeneration and seed dispersal.
Voice
Like so many other aspects of its biology, the vocalisations of the huia are not well known, and present knowledge is based on very few accounts. The calls were mostly a varied array of whistles, "peculiar and strange", but also "soft, melodious and flute-like". An imitation of the bird's call survives as a recording of 1909 huia search team member Henare Hamana whistling the call (see External links). Huia were often silent. When they did vocalise, their calls could carry considerable distances – some were audible from up to away through dense forest. The calls were said to differ between sexes, though there are no details. Calls were given with the bird's head and neck stretched outward and its bill pointing 30 to 45 degrees from the vertical. Most references describe huia calls as heard in the early morning; one records it as the first bird to sing in the dawn chorus, and captive birds were known to "wake the household". Like the whitehead, huia behaved unusually before the onset of wet weather, being "happy and in full song". The bird's name is onomatopoeic: it was named by Māori for its loud distress call, a smooth, unslurred whistle rendered as uia, uia, uia or where are you?. This call was said to be given when the bird was excited or hungry. Chicks had a "plaintive cry, pleasant to the ear", would feebly answer imitations by people, and were very noisy when kept in tents.
Commensals and parasites
A species of parasitic phtilopterid louse, Rallicola extinctus, was only known to live on the huia, and apparently became extinct with its host. In 2008, a new species of feather mite, Coraciacarus muellermotzfeldi, was described from dried corpses found in the feathers of a huia skin held by a European museum. While the genus Coraciacarus has a wide range of hosts globally, the presence of a representative of the genus on a passerine bird was an "enigmatic phenomenon". The discoverers suggested the mite could have been horizontally transferred from one of the two native, migratory species of cuckoo (Cuculiformes).
Social behaviour and reproduction
A quiet, social bird, the huia was monogamous, and pairs probably paired for life. The bird was usually found in breeding pairs, although sometimes groups of four or more were encountered. Walter Buller records that a tame pair would always keep close to each other, constantly uttering a "low affectionate twitter", even when in captivity. There are records of this same pair and a further, wild pair "hopping from branch to branch and fanning their tails, then meeting to caress each other with their bills" and uttering these noises. The male is said to have fed the female in courtship. It is thought that these behaviours may have been a sexual display. The claim that the male fed the female while she was incubating and on the nest "lacks evidence". When the male of this captive pair was accidentally killed, the female "manifesting the utmost distress pined for her mate and died 10 days afterwards". A Māori man in the 19th century recalled: "I was always told by my old people that a pair of huia lived on most affectionate terms ... If the male died first, the female died soon after of grief". The huia had no fear of people; females allowed themselves to be handled on the nest, and birds could easily be captured by hand.
Little is known about the huia's reproduction, as only two eggs and four nests were ever described. The only known huia egg to still exist is in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The breeding season for mating, building nests, laying eggs and raising young is thought to have been late spring (October–November). It is thought they nested solitarily; pairs are said to have been territorial and the birds would remain on their territories for life. Huia appear to have raised just one brood per season; the number of eggs in a clutch is variously described as being 3–5, 4, 2–4 and 1–4. These eggs were greyish with purple and brown speckles, and measured . Incubation was mostly by the female, though there is evidence that the male also had a small role, as rubbed-bare brooding patches that were smaller than those of females were discovered on some males in November. The incubation period is unknown. Eggshells were apparently removed from the nest by adults. The brood size was usually one or two, though there was the odd record of up to three chicks in a single nest. Nests were constructed in varying places: in dead trees, the crooks of large branches, tree hollows, on branches, or "on or near the ground", and some nests were covered with hanging vegetation or vines. The nest itself was a large saucer-shaped structure, up to 350 mm in diameter and 70 mm deep, with thick walls of dry grass, leaves and "withered stems of herbaceous plants". A central small, shallow cup of soft materials such as grass and fine twigs cushioned and insulated the eggs. After hatching, young remained in the family group and were fed by the adults for three months, by which time they appeared adult.
Relationship with humans
In culture
In Māori culture, the "white heron and the Huia were not normally eaten but were rare birds treasured for their precious plumes, worn by people of high rank". The bold and inquisitive nature of the huia made it particularly easy to capture. Māori attracted the huia by imitating its call and then captured it with a tari (a carved pole with a noose at the end) or snare, or killed it with clubs or long spears. Often they exploited the strong pair bond by capturing one of a pair, which would then call out, attracting its mate, which could be easily captured. Opinion on the quality of huia meat as food varied wildly; although not usually hunted for this purpose, the huia was considered "good eating" in pies or curried stew by some, but a "tough morsel" and "unfit to eat" by others.
Although the huia's range was restricted to the southern North Island, its tail feathers were valued highly and were exchanged among tribes for other valuable goods such as pounamu and shark teeth, or given as tokens of friendship and respect. Through this trade, the feathers reached the far north and the far south of New Zealand. They were stored in intricately carved boxes called waka huia, which were hung from the ceilings of chiefs' houses. Huia feathers were worn at funerals and used to decorate the heads of the deceased. The marereko, described by Edward Robert Tregear as an "ancient war-plume", consisted of twelve huia feathers. The highly valued pōhoi was an ornament made from the skin of the huia: the bird was skinned with the beak, skull and wattles attached and the legs and wings removed, carefully dried, and the resulting ornament worn from the neck or ears. Dried huia heads were also worn as pendants called ngutu huia. A captured huia would be kept in a small cage so that its tail feathers could be plucked as they grew to full size.
The bird was also kept by Māori as a pet, and like the tūī, it could be trained to say a few words. There is also a record of a tame huia kept by European settlers in a small village in the Forty-Mile Bush in the 19th century.
New Zealand has released several postage stamps portraying the huia. The New Zealand sixpence coin, minted between 1933 and 1966, featured a female huia on the reverse.
The degree to which the huia was known and admired in New Zealand is reflected in the large number of suburban and geographical features which are named after the species. There are several roads and streets named after the huia in the North Island, with several in Wellington (including Huia Road in Days Bay – not far from where one of the last sightings of this species occurred in the early 1920s in the forests of East Harbour Regional Park) and also in Auckland, where there is even a Huia suburb in Waitakere. A river on the west coast of the South Island and the Huiarau Ranges in the central North Island are also named after the bird. The species was once found living in great abundance in the forests of these mountains: Huiarau means "a hundred huia". Businesses include the public swimming pool in Lower Hutt, a Marlborough winery, and Huia Publishers, which specialises in Māori writing and perspectives. The name was first given to a child in the late 19th century, to the son of members of a lower North Island iwi concerned about the bird's rapid decline, and although uncommon, it is still used today in New Zealand as a name for girls and more rarely for boys (e.g. Huia Edmonds), of both European and Māori descent. Huia also featured extensively in contemporary art and handcrafts, commonly seen in gift shops the around the country. In 2020 Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wore up cycled Huia feather earrings during a public COVID-19 announcement causing demand to soar.
Tail feathers of the extinct huia are very rare and they have become a collectors' item. In June 2010 a single huia tail feather sold at auction in Auckland for NZ$8,000, much higher than the $500 the auctioneers had expected, making it the most expensive feather ever. The previous record price for a single feather was $US2,800 (NZ$4,000) achieved by a bald eagle feather at auction in the United States.
In the 2016 New Zealand film Hunt for the Wilderpeople two of the characters encounter a huia, and eventually set out to obtain proof of their sighting. Reviewers asserted that in the film the huia is significant as a "uniquely indigenous" symbol that "represents harmony with nature and the wild."
Extinction
The huia was found throughout the North Island before humans arrived in New Zealand. Māori are estimated to have arrived around 750 years ago, and by the arrival of European settlers in the 1840s, habitat destruction, hunting, and introduced rats had reduced the bird's range to the southern North Island. However, Māori hunting pressures on the huia were limited to some extent by traditional protocols. The hunting season was from May to July when the bird's plumage was in prime condition, while a rāhui (hunting ban) was enforced in spring and summer. After European settlement the huia's numbers began to decline more quickly, due mainly to two well-documented factors: widespread deforestation and over-hunting.
Like the extinctions of other New Zealand birds such as the piopio in the 19th century, the decline of the huia was poorly studied. Massive deforestation occurred in the North Island at this time, particularly in the lowlands of southern Hawkes Bay, the Manawatu and the Wairarapa, as land was cleared by European settlers for agriculture. The huia was particularly vulnerable to this as it could only live in old-growth forest where there were abundant rotting trees filled with wood-boring insect larvae. It seems it could not survive in regenerating, secondary forests. Although the mountainous part of its former range was not deforested, the lowland forests of the valleys below were systematically destroyed. The destruction of this part of its habitat would have undoubtedly had a severe impact on huia populations, but its removal would have been particularly dire if they did in fact descend to the lowlands as a winter refuge to escape snow at higher altitudes as some researchers including Oliver have surmised.
It appears that predation by invasive mammalian species including ship rats, cats, and mustelids was an additional factor in the decline in huia numbers – introduction of these animals by New Zealand acclimatisation societies peaked in the 1880s and coincided with a particularly sharp decline in huia populations. Because it spent a lot of time on the ground, the huia would have been particularly vulnerable to mammalian predators. Another hypothetical cause of extinction is exotic parasites and disease introduced from Asia with the common myna.
Habitat destruction and the predations of introduced species were problems faced by all New Zealand birds, but in addition the huia faced massive pressure from hunting. Due to its pronounced sexual dimorphism and its beauty, huia were sought after as mounted specimens by wealthy collectors in Europe and by museums all over the world. These individuals and institutions were willing to pay large sums of money for good specimens, and the overseas demand created a strong financial incentive for hunters in New Zealand. This hunting was initially by naturalists. Austrian taxidermist Andreas Reischek took 212 pairs as specimens for the natural history museum in Vienna over a period of 10 years, while New Zealand ornithologist Walter Buller collected 18 on just one of several expeditions to the Rimutaka Ranges in 1883. Others keen to profit soon joined in. Buller records that also in 1883, a party of 11 Māori obtained 646 huia skins from the forest between the Manawatu Gorge and Ākitio. Several thousand huia were exported overseas as part of this trade. Infrastructure development within lowland forest did not help the situation: hundreds of huia were shot around road and rail construction camps.
The rampant and unsustainable hunting was not just financially motivated: it also had a more philosophical, fatalistic aspect. The conventional wisdom among New Zealand Europeans in the 19th century was that things colonial, whether they were plants, animals or people, were inferior to things European. It was widely assumed that the plants and animals of New Zealand's forest ecosystems would be quickly replaced by more vigorous and competitive European species. This assumption of inevitable doom led to a conclusion that the conservation of native biota was pointless and futile; Victorian collectors instead focused their efforts on acquiring a good range of specimens before the rare species disappeared altogether.
There were some attempts to conserve the huia, but they were few, poorly organised and poorly enforced legally: the conservation movement in New Zealand was still very much in its infancy. There were successive sharp declines in numbers of huia in the 1860s and in the late 1880s, prompting the chiefs of the Manawatu and the Wairarapa to place a rāhui on the Tararua Range. In February 1892, the Wild Birds Protection Act was amended to include the huia, making it illegal to kill the bird, but enforcement was not taken seriously. Island sanctuaries were set up for endangered native birds after this act, but the new bird sanctuaries, including Kapiti Island, Little Barrier Island and Resolution Island, were never stocked with huia. Although attempts were made to capture birds for transfer, no huia were ever transferred. The Kapiti Island attempt is documented as being particularly poorly managed. A live pair destined to be transferred to the island in 1893 was instead appropriated by Buller, who bent the law to take them back to England as a present for Lord Rothschild, along with the last collected live pair of laughing owls.
The Duke and Duchess of York (later George V and Queen Mary) visited New Zealand in 1901. At an official Māori welcome in Rotorua, a guide took a huia tail feather from her hair and placed it in the band of the Duke's hat as a token of respect. Many people in England and New Zealand wanted to emulate this royal fashion and wear huia feathers in their hats. The price of tail feathers was soon pushed to £1, making each bird worth £12, and some feathers sold for as much as £5. Female huia beaks were also set in gold as jewellery. Shooting season notices ceased listing the huia as a protected species in 1901, and a last-ditch attempt to reinforce government protection failed when the solicitor general ruled that there was no law to protect feathers.
The decline of the huia over the southern half of the North Island occurred at markedly different rates in different locations. Areas where dramatic declines were observed in the 1880s included the Puketoi Range, the Hutt Valley and Tararuas, and the Pahiatua-Dannevirke area. The species was abundant in a few places in the early 20th century between Hawke's Bay and the Wairarapa; a flock of 100–150 birds was reported at the summit of the Akatarawa–Waikanae track in 1905; they were still "fairly plentiful" in the upper reaches of the Rangitikei River in 1906 – and yet, the last confirmed sighting came just one year later.
The last official, confirmed huia sighting was made on 28 December 1907 when W. W. Smith saw three birds in the forests of the Tararua Ranges. Unconfirmed, "quite credible" reports suggest that extinction for the species came a little later. A man familiar with the species reported seeing three huia in Gollans Valley behind York Bay (between Petone and Eastbourne on Wellington Harbour), an area of mixed beech and podocarp forest well within the bird's former range, on 28 December 1922. Sightings of the huia were also reported there in 1912 and 1913. Despite this, naturalists from the Dominion Museum in Wellington did not investigate the reports. The last credible reports of huia come from the forests of Te Urewera National Park, with one from near Mt Urutawa in 1952 and final sightings near Lake Waikareiti in 1961 and 1963. The possibility of a small huia population still surviving in the Urewera ranges has been proposed by some researchers, but is considered highly unlikely. No recent expeditions have been mounted to find a living specimen.
Students at Hastings Boys' High School organised a conference in 1999 to consider cloning the huia, their school emblem. The tribe Ngāti Huia agreed in principle to support the endeavour, which would be carried out at the University of Otago, and a California-based Internet start-up volunteered $100,000 of funding. However, Sandy Bartle, curator of birds at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, said that the complete huia genome could not be derived from museum skins because of the poor state of the DNA, and cloning was therefore unlikely to succeed.
References
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
Huia specimens at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Huia calls (imitation)
Callaeidae
Birds of the North Island
Extinct birds of New Zealand
Māori culture
Species made extinct by human activities
Birds described in 1837
Bird extinctions since 1500
Articles containing video clips
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Chris King and Vicki Grant are depicted as two featured duo characters from DC Comics within the series Dial H for Hero. They are portrayed as normal kids who can transform themselves as superheroes replacing Robby Reed during the 1980s.
Fictional character biography
Original series
The second Dial H for Hero series debuted in the 1980s, in a special insert in Legion of Super-Heroes #272 (February 1981), then ran in Adventure Comics #479–490 and continued in New Adventures of Superboy #28–49; the duo also appeared alongside Superman in DC Comics Presents #44. The original writer and artist in the series were Marv Wolfman and Carmine Infantino.
In this series, two other dials are discovered years later by teenagers Christopher "Chris" King and Victoria "Vicki" Grant of the New England town of Fairfax in a "haunted house". These dials — disguised as a watch and a necklace — only have the letters H-E-R-O on them, and work only for an hour, after which they will not work for another hour. King and Grant begin protecting Fairfax from a number of menaces. Unknown to them, most of these villains are created by a mysterious villain known only as The Master (who is obsessed with the H-dials for reasons unknown for most of the series) who creates them from the cell samples of unknown people.
While anyone could use Chris and Vicki's H-dials, they always turned the user into a hero, regardless of his or her personality; even The Master was temporarily made good by one. This fact has been ignored in later stories. On one occasion, a hero's persona overwhelmed the heroic Chris' own personality; as "Ragnarok, the Cosmic Viking", he possessed no awareness of Chris King's memories and acted with disregard for others' property and safety, going so far as to threaten police officers and swat away Vicki (as the miniature heroine "Pixie") when she attempted to talk him down, failing to recognize her as an ally. On a side note, it was a matter of contention with Chris when he first started using the dial that while Vicki changed into useful heroes with applicable powers, Chris's powers tended to be obscure and not particularly useful to defeat his opponent, such as when he changed into a super hero that could duplicate things and he outright began complaining about his useless ability. Indeed, it was that issue where Vicki showed Chris to think "outside the box" and use his temporary gifts creatively so they could be useful, at which point he helped defeat that issue's bad guy. Once this lesson was learned, Chris's super-hero changes became more relevant to the situation, but no explanation was given as to why this was.
Eventually Chris and Vicki discover that a fellow student named Nick Stevens has been drawing up superheroes as a hobby — and somehow, the dials turn them into those heroes. With Nick's help, they find out that their dials were created by a being called The Wizard (not to be confused with the DC Comics villain of the same name), whom the Master thought he'd killed years before. In truth, The Wizard faked his death while he looked for the original Hero Dial. With it, he merges with The Master — and transforms into Robby Reed, who explains that years before, he had used the dial to split in two (dialing "S P L I T") so that he could disarm a dead man's switch, while his other self, the Wizard, defeated the villain who set it. However, the Wizard carried all of Robby's inherent goodness, while the Robby that remained possessed only evil impulses; the original Hero Dial was lost when this Robby, renaming himself The Master, dialed "hide yourself", causing the dial to vanish along with The Master's and The Wizard's memories of their former life as Robby Reed. While The Master learned genetic techniques that allowed him to create his army of super-villains, the Wizard was driven to create the new H-dials, unconsciously designing limitations into them to prevent what happened to Robby from recurring (only heroic identities, a time limit, and the exclusion of letters other than H-E-R-O; the latter, however, did not prevent Chris from experimenting on one occasion and dialing H-O-R-R-O-R, with disastrous results). With Nick developing the ability to actively influence the dials' results (rather than subconsciously as before), Robby passes his dial to Nick, and retires as a hero.
In New Teen Titans #45 (June 1988), Victoria and Chris' history after the end of their series is revealed. After the two teens graduated from high school, they found they had gained the ability to transform without the dials — apparently because of their extensive use — but as a side-effect Vicki began experiencing mental problems. Vicki later joined a cult called the Children of the Sun, where she was physically and mentally abused, deranging her even more. She sought out her former partner Chris in order to kill him. With help from the Teen Titans, Chris rescued her (in New Teen Titans #46). Chris now finds that he changes into a new superhero every hour, without the dial, and remains that way until he expends an unspecified amount of energy. He decides to continue his superhero career, using a suit provided by S.T.A.R. Labs to monitor his changes.
In Superboy and the Ravers #5 (January 1997), Hero Cruz finds Vicki's H-dial in the lair of Scavenger, and uses it to gain superpowers. A still deranged Vicki returns in Superboy and the Ravers #13 (September 1997) to get her dial back from Hero, but she regains her sanity once she uses the device. She is last seen in the care of the Forces, a family of metahumans.
Other appearances
As an epilogue to the Chris King/Vicki Grant Dial H series, The New Adventures of Superboy #50 features a story in which Chris King's watch is stolen from the Space Museum of the Legion of Super-Heroes' time period by a thief named Nylor Truggs, who flees with the dial to the ambiguous late 1960s/early 1970s era-Smallville of the original (Earth-One) Superboy by altering the dial's functions in some unexplained manner, allowing him to travel in time. Truggs further alters the H-dial to break the restriction that users can only transform into heroic identities, changing the "H" in the center of the dial to "V" for "villain". Truggs also makes the dial capable of changing individuals other than himself into villains if he desires; those transformed would then be under Truggs' control. Truggs transforms several of Clark Kent's high school friends, and forms a temporary alliance with a teenaged Lex Luthor, in a scheme to plant seismic devices in their time period so that Truggs can use those devices against the people of his own future time upon his return. Truggs' plan is foiled by Superboy, several members of the Legion, and Krypto the Superdog, the latter of which destroys the stolen H-Dial by crushing it in his jaws. Vicki Grant's H-Dial is also shown to have survived to the Legion's time and is slated to replace King's dial in the museum display. As this story was published before the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths (which erased the Earth-One Superboy from continuity) and the subsequent rebootings of the Legion of Super-Heroes' history, it is unlikely that any elements of this story exist in current continuity.
Hero forms
Chris King
Moth – A superhero with flight ability.
Mega Boy – A superhero that could shoot powerful beams from his hands.
Color Commando – A superhero who used a variety of color-based weapons with different effects.
Doomster, Master of the Cosmic Lightning – A superhero that could shoot and ride lightning bolts.
Composite Man – A superhero who could create miniature duplicates of himself.
Captain Electron – A superhero that could shoot destructive electron-blasts from his hands.
Mister Mystical, Master of Magic – A superhero who possessed magical abilities.
Star Flare – Described by Chris as "the Human Missile" and "the greatest hero since Superman". This identity allowed Chris to fly and wield a star sword.
Solar Flare – A superhero with the ability to fly and a power punch (although Chris was only shown using the latter).
Wrangler – A "cosmic cowboy" that Chris became to battle Battering Ram.
Goldman – A flying superhero who created "gold" constructs. He is the partner of Goldgirl.
Sixth Sensor – A mind-reading superhero.
Volcano – A superhero with power over the earth, specifically lava.
Mister Thin – A two-dimensional creature that could stretch like a rubber band. Four legs and a freakish face.
Interchancge the metamorphic man - is a hero that has a tank power never shown.
Anti-Man – A flying superhero with anti-matter blasts.
Dragonfly – A winged superhero with multi-directional sight.
Teleman – A teleporting superhero.
Zeep the Living Sponge – He was created by future comic-book artist Stephen DeStefano. Zeep later appeared in DeStefano and Bob Rozakis's Hero Hotline series. He had the power to bounce.
Lightmaster – A superhero. No other details given. This character and the next in this list were dismissed in but one panel.
Molecule Man – A superhero. No other details given.
Music Master – A superhero with a radio that turned sound into energy he could manipulate.
Gladiator – A superhero with a sorcery-spawned power sword. This character could not fly.
White – A superhero who emitted a beam of white energy that was harmless until it crossed a similar beam from his partner Black.
Waspman – A flying superhero who fired "wasp stingers".
Vibro the Quakemaster – A superhero with vibration power.
Steadfast – A superhero with the power to immobilize anything moving.
Gravity Boy – A superhero that controlled gravity.
Blast Boy – A superhero with an explosive punch.
Electrostatic – A superhero that is the master of all electromagnetic waves.
Lumino – A superhero that is able to create solid light shapes.
Enlarger Man – A superhero that is able to enlarge things.
Brimstone – A superhero that can fly and control lava.
Avatar – Master of the four elements. He rode Sahri the Spirit Tiger.
Wind Rider – A superhero that is able to fly and control air.
Psi-Fire – A superhero that could solidify or become intangible with his mental powers.
Oxide – A superhero that could cause metal to rust.
Ragnarok the Cosmic Viking – A mystical superhero with enhanced strength and a magical battle axe. Notable in that Ragnarok's self-identity completely suppressed Chris' own personality, including his knowledge that Vicki (as Pixie) was an ally.
Captain Saturn – A superhero who could control giant flying rings that could bind enemies.
Moonlight – A superhero with the power to project either bright light or darkness.
Mental Man – A superhero with goggles that allowed him to project realistic illusions.
Neon – An energy-blasting superhero.
Phase Master – A superhero who could turn anything into solid, liquid, or gas.
Multi-Force – A superhero who could create a duplicate of any object.
Gemstone – A superhero with a super-hard crystalline body.
Hasty Pudding - A superhero who could not move normally. He either stood rock still or ran like the Flash.
Radar Man – A superhero that is able to locate things and teleport to their location.
Stuntmaster – A superhero that rode a high-tech motorcycle and had an energy-firing scepter.
Shadow Master – A superhero that is able to create shadows.
Centaurus, Master of Vibration – A superhero with the ability to absorb vibration and use it as an energy blast.
Deflecto – A superhero that could create projective force-fields that would deflect anything thrown at him.
Worm Man – A superhero that is half-human, half-giant worm. He could eat/dig his way through earth at super-speed.
Spectro – A superhero whose powers were never shown. This and the next 3 are another instance where characters that somebody took the trouble to create was dismissed in but one panel. These were on a world where time works differently.
Airmaster – A superhero whose powers were never shown.
Sting – A superhero whose powers were never shown.
Attacko – A superhero whose powers were never shown.
Galaxy – A superhero that is able to teleport himself and others travel across space and back to Earth. This hero managed to escape the strange time-altered world.
Topsy-Turvy – A superhero that causes others to feel extremely disoriented.
Beast-Maniac – Chris King jokingly dialed "H-O-R-R-O-R" and became an evil creature that was super-strong and could fly with arm-wings. It took Superman to stop and restrain him and then try to analyze the H-Dials (he found no internal mechanisms with his X-Ray vision whatsoever).
Prism – A superhero that could absorb energy and then return it magnified one hundred-fold.
Essence – A superhero that could suck the lifeforce from his enemies with his scepter.
Red Devil – Could turn into a variety of demons including invisible and large spikey
Tar-Man – A living tar superhero who could become super hard or soft and squirt tar.
Mr. Opposite – A superhero that is able to make anything act in the opposite way to what it naturally does. Vicki dialed Chris into this identity and Chris wondered if the fact that Vicki was the "opposite sex" may have influenced the transformation.
Power Punch –
Cold Wave –
Earthman – A superhero that was able to manipulate the Earth's gravitational and magnetic fields.
Any-Body – A superhero could duplicate the appearance of any other person.
Jimmy Gymnastic – A superhero that was a super-athlete.
Trail Blazer – A superhero able to fly and track villains, causing their trails to be outlined in flame.
Roll – A superhero with super-speed.
Kinetic Kid –
Glassman –
X-Rayder –
Spheror –
Fuzz-Ball - A superhero that was a fuzzy head with feet but no body or arms. He is the partner of "Raggedy Doll".
Trouble-Clef: Master of Magical Music –
Serrator –
Synapse the Energy Man –
Martian Marshall – A Western version of Martian Manhunter.
Rubberneck – A stretchable superhero.
Vicki Grant
Futura – A superheroine with flight, precognition, possibly other psionic powers.
Sunspot – A superheroine with solar-energy powers.
Ice – A superheroine with cold-based powers & flight.
Grasshopper – A superheroine with super-leaping & agility.
Twilight, Mistress of the Dark – A superheroine with shadow powers.
Windsong – A superheroine with the ability to control winds.
Molecule Maiden – A superheroine with the ability to control molecules.
Hypno Girl – A superheroine with hypnotic abilities. This identity could not fly much to Vicki's annoyance.
Midnight Wisp – A superheroine who is the "fastest girl in Fairfax".
Strato-Girl, Mistress of the Wind – A superheroine that can control winds.
Goldgirl – A superheroine that has flight & generation of "gold" constructs. Partner of Goldman.
Alchemiss – A superheroine that with command of the Earth's four ancient elements.
Dimension Girl – A superheroine who is able to generate other-dimensional portals.
Stellar – A superheroine able to control the air.
Ultra Girl – A gorgeous superheroine with super-strength.
Starlet – Another superheroine with super-strength and the ability to "know a target's weakest point".
Cardinal – A telekinetic superheroine.
Ani-Woman – A superheroine that is able to bring inanimate objects to life under her control.
Thumbelina – A tiny superheroine with full-sized strength.
Tiara Star – A superheroine, no other description given.
Matter Girl – A superheroine, no other description given.
Echo – A superheroine with energy-repelling powers.
Ariel – A flying superheroine with energy powers.
Black – A superheroine who emitted a beam of black energy that was harmless until it crossed a similar beam from her partner White.
Weather Witch – A superheroine who controls the weather.
Emerald Tiger – A superheroine with enhanced speed & strength.
Rainbeaux, Mistress of Color – A superheroine that projects different colored beams, each with a different power.
Hummingbird – A superheroine who could fly and move her wings at super-speed.
Hydra, Goddess of the Sea – A superheroine that can control water.
Hyptella – A superheroine who is the Mistress of Hypnotism. Unlike Vicki's previous hypnotism-based identity, Hyptella could fly.
Sonik – A superheroine that can control sound.
Puma the She-Cat – A superheroine with super-agility.
Sulphur – A superheroine that can generate a cloud of sulphur. She couldn't fly and actually oozed sulphuric acid out of her feet.
Sparrowhawk – A superheroine with wings.
Kismet, Mistress of Mind Wave – A superheroine who possessed clairvoyance.
Plant Mistress – A superheroine able to control any plant that grows.
Sea Mist – A superheroine able to create watery vapors.
Harp – A superheroine with winged flight and a magical harp that calmed targets.
Pixie – A tiny superheroine with magical "fairy dust".
Snowfall – A superheroine with ice powers.
Glass Lass – A crystalline superheroine with "glass" skin and power to amplify light into laser beams.
Unicorn – A superheroine whose horn healed with a touch.
Queen of Hearts – An emotion-controlling superheroine.
Blue Biker – A superheroine that drove a high-powered bicycle, but had no powers whatsoever. She pretended to be Unicorn to testify in a court case against Tsunami and Distortionex.
Weaver – A superheroine who could weave webs into different shapes.
Frosty – A superheroine whose eyes had white irises and blue sclera. Her icy gaze could shatter any substance at will. The original creation (which never made it to the printed page) also included telepathic powers and the ability to teleport short distances. Frosty was created by Ann-Marie Roy (née Leslie) from Scotland.
Tempest – The "hair" on her head transformed into various kinds of weather phenomena.
Starburst – A superheroine with flight and energy blast powers.
Spinning Jenny – A superheroine that could fly and spin at super-speed, so fast that she could even travel through time.
Scylla – A superheroine that had mechanical serpent heads with laser eyes attached to her sides.
Sphera – A superheroine who could create spheres of any material for a variety of effects.
Blazerina – A superheroine who could dance and spin to build up a powerful blast of laser energy.
Thundera – A superheroine with thunderous shout and destructive eye-beams.
Monarch – A superheroine who could fly with large butterfly-like wings.
Miss Hourglass – A superheroine with the ability to control time.
Sirocco the Desert Wind – is a hero that has the power of infinite wind .
Infra-Violet –
Gossamer – A flying superheroine who could weave cocoons.
Fan –
Visionary – A superheroine who could see several seconds into the future.
Spyglass –
Psi-Clone – A superheroine with psychic powers and the ability to create duplicates of people.
Rock – A fun-loving superheroine with super-strength.
Genesis – A superheroine able to transform living beings to stone and back and bring inanimate objects to life.
Ms. Muscle –
Lavender Skywriter – A superheroine who could cause objects to appear by skywriting their names with purple mist.
Turnabout –
Raggedy Doll – A living rag doll with no ability to move at all, let alone any powers and is a partner of "Fuzzball".
Venus the Flying Trap –
"Fish-Girl" (villainess) –
"Fire Girl" (villainess) –
"Water Girl" (villainess) –
"Diamond Girl" (villainess) –
"Electrical Girl" (villainess) –
"Machinery Girl" (villainess) –
Harpy (villainess) –
Volcano Girl (villainess) –
Sister Scissor-Limbs – A villainess with sharp shears for arms that could cut through most materials.
Cobress (villainess) – A reptilian villainess with a hypnotic gaze.
Villains
Flying Buttress – A flying metallic warrior from another galaxy and servant to G.L.U.N.K.
G.L.U.N.K. – Short for the Galactic Logistic Unit for Navigation and Knowledge, it is a talking spaceship with a freeze ray.
Gordanian Robots – Robot sentries sent to Earth to protect Gordanian technology.
Silver Fog – Samuel Toth is a supervillain that could take the form of a mist-like substance. This character was created by Harlan Ellison.
Red Death – A scientist cursed with a disintegrating touch.
Sphinx – An energy-draining extraterrestrial who emerged in modern times after crash-landing in Ancient Egypt. He went home peacefully after Vicki and Chris used their powers to make him a spaceship.
Thunder Axe – A criminal that once captured Vicki's parents. He wielded an axe that he could throw and control across distance.
Battering Ram – Bruno Hogan was a mutant and former circus star that was fired for theft and vowed revenge. He has ram horns on his head and has super-strength.
Aquarians – A race of sea-dwelling aliens intent on colonizing the Earth using artificial storms.
Largo the Invincible – The greatest warrior of Aquaria.
Destructess – Martha Winters is a mentally-ill woman endowed by Aquarians with energy-shooting bracelets.
Interchange the Metamorphic Man – A supervillain with shape-changing powers that once threatened Washington D.C.
Silversmith – A supervillain with the power to encase his enemies in silver.
Blade Master – A supervillain hired by the H.I.V.E. to kill Professor Oxford.
Gamesmaster – Gary Ames is a supervillain who uses game-themed weapons. He was mentioned to have been a former henchman of Joker.
Wildebeest – A poacher who comes to America to hunt in a game preserve. This Wildebeest has no known connection to the Wildebeest Society that menaced the Teen Titans and was responsible for the creation of Pantha.
Bounty Hunter – A costumed vigilante who targets a mobster. When he was arrested by the police, Bounty Hunter was killed by Pupil who was reprogrammed by Master. It was later revealed that he was a clone created by Master from the cell samples of an unknown person.
Pupil – A floating computer associated with Bounty Hunter that looked like a giant eye wearing a graduation cap.
Master – See Robby Reed.
Mr. Negative – A man whose negative attitude and exposure to radiation made those around him feel suicidal.
The Evil Eight – The Master's team of supervillains which he created from the cell samples of unknown people. The Evil Eight were used by Master to set up an ion forcefield around Fairfax so that he can get Ronald Reagan to make Fairfax his own independent country. Upon their defeat and exposure as clones, the Evil Eight were handed over to S.T.A.R. Labs for further study and psychic evaluation in hopes that they might be rehabilitated and returned to society as useful citizens.
Arsenal – An armored supervillain with various weapons.
Chondak – A blue ape-like humanoid monster with super-strength whose brain is visible in a clear dome.
Familiar – A female supervillain who is able to become any substance she touched.
Ice King – A helmet-wearing supervillain with the ability to generate and control ice. He can also ride a flying ice sled.
K-9 – A dog-themed supervillain with razor-sharp claws.
Maniak – An acrobatic supervillain.
Phantasm – A ghost-like supervillain with ghost-like abilities that can also summon demonic ghosts. He is not to be confused with the DC Comics character of the same name.
Piledriver – A supervillain with a metal torso and arms who possesses super-strength.
Grockk the Devil's Son – A villain that apparently comes from the pits of Hell.
Firegirl – A villainess that Grock created. She wasn't really evil and sacrificed herself to stop Grocck.
Sky Raider – A flying thief who had stolen a Rembrandt from Vicki's father. He uses a jet pack to fly.
Crimson Star – A supervillain created by the Master whose powers derive from the stars.
Radiator – A supervillain created by the Master whose suit contains different radiation beams.
Snakeman – Professor Charles Ralston is a scientist who had been transformed into a giant serpent after getting cut upon accidentally smashing a serum vial.
Jinx – A supervillain created by the Master who had the power of jinxing. He is not to be confused with the DC Comics character of the same name.
Cancero – An aquatic villain created by the Master who wears a crab-themed powered armor.
Jelly Woman – A weird villainess created by the Master with a body composed of gelatinous substance.
Belladonna – Angela Wainwright is a chemist turned criminal who carries poisonous substances in weaponized forms.
Tsunami – A supervillainess created by the Master who could create destructive tidal waves similar to her namesake. She was partnered with Distortionex to create disaster situations while he robbed deserted businesses.
Distortionex – A male supervillan created by the Master with the power to disintegrate matter. He was partnered with Tsunami to create disaster situations while he robbed deserted businesses.
Controller – An artificial intelligence created by the Marionette to assist in operating his android body. The Controller became insane and directed the Marionette to commit criminal acts.
Marionette – An alien who placed his mind in an android body controlled by the Controller's "marionette strings".
Abyss – A living gateway between worlds. In "The New 52", Abyss returns as an opponent of Nelson Jent.
Squid – An alien who could project deadly 'ink' from his fingertips. He was the ally/servant of Abyss, who transported him to Earth from his homeworld. In "The New 52", he returned as an opponent of Nelson Jent.
Blackjack – A villain from another planet who utilized deadly casino-based objects against his enemies.
Serpent –
Senses-Taker – A supervillain created by the Master with the power to negate the senses.
Disc Jockey – Louis Yagger is a supervillain that flies on a giant flying record player and can force any device that produces sound to play his transmissions.
Whitefire – A supervillain who can transport anything to his dimension by exchanging it with something from his own.
Naiad – Diana Lyon is a supervillainess with water-based powers.
Marauder – A supervillain that the Master used to spring Naiad from jail.
Blade – One of the Master's minions. He is a supervillain who wielded an array of bladed weaponry that he can throw.
Kaleidoscope – One of the Master's minions. She is a supervillainess who could create hallucinations and illusions through a light display reminiscent of her namesake.
Chain Master – One of the Master's minions. He is a supervillain who wielded a ball and chain-type flail.
Silhouette – One of the Master's minions. He is a supervillain who could absorb victims into his "shadow box" while transforming their shadows into duplicates under his control. His duplicates could be detected by the fact that they cast no shadows of their own.
Firecracker – A supervillain that uses explosive firecrackers.
Windrider – A flying supervillain who can control wind and create vortexes.
Istanbul Frankie Perkins – A small-time criminal that the Silhouette (using a duplicate of Detective Greg King) tried to frame for a robbery.
Coil – A supervillain created by the Master that once kidnapped Detective Greg King. He has the ability to extend and compress his body like a coil spring.
Fire Devil – A demonic fiery skeleton-themed villain created by the Master with fire-based powers.
Pod – He is a corn-like tentacled creature created by the Master.
Golden Web – He is a spider-themed supervillain created by the Master who could weave golden webbing.
Swarm – She is a flying insectoid woman created by the Master who could split herself into many insect-sized, spear-wielding duplicates with a collective mind.
Power Pirate – He is a pirate-themed supervillain created by the Master who could drain superhuman abilities. However, if targets concentrate on their weaknesses rather than their strengths, he would absorb those weaknesses instead.
Master's Unnamed Supervillain Army – A bunch of supervillains created by the Master from the cell samples of unknown people. Chris King and Vicki Grant fought them at the Master's factory hideout outside of Fairfax.
Aurora – A supervillainess that can project auras of different colors from her body and solidify them into weapons.
Blue Damsel Fly – A damselfly-themed supervillainess with insect wings who could fire energy beams from her hands.
Cableman – A supervillain who could release an entangling cable from his right hand.
Darkstar – A supervillain with unspecified energy projection abilities.
Decibel – A supervillain who possesses a sonic scream.
Electron – A supervillain who could generate electricity.
Hitpin – A supervillainess who threw weighted objects similar to bowling pins.
Metalliferro – A supervillain who could coat targets in metallic substances of his choice.
Overseer – A supervillainess in a dominatrix-styled costume who wields an energized chain.
Serpentina – A supervillainess with a petrifying gaze.
Solar Dynamo – A supervillain with unspecified energy projection abilities that might be solar-based.
Spyderr – A supervillain with six arms who possesses super-strength.
Titaness – A size-shifting supervillainess.
Trojan – A Trojan soldier-themed supervillain with unspecified energy projection abilities.
References
External links
Chris King at Comic Vine
Vicki Grant at Comic Vine
DC Comics characters
DC Comics characters who are shapeshifters
DC Comics superheroes
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The economy of France is a highly developed, market-oriented economy. It is the world's seventh-largest economy by 2020 nominal figures and the ninth-largest economy by PPP, constituting 3.3% of world GDP. As of September 30, 2020, it was the 3rd largest economy of Europe, after the economy of Germany and the economy of the United Kingdom.
France has a diversified economy, that is dominated by the service sector (which in 2017 represented 78.8% of its GDP), whilst the industrial sector accounted for 19.5% of its GDP and the primary sector accounted for the remaining 1.7%. France was in 2020 the largest Foreign Direct Investment recipient in Europe, and Europe's second largest spender in Research and development. It was ranked among the 10 most innovative countries in the world by the 2020 Bloomberg Innovation Index, as well as the 15th most competitive nation globally, according to the 2019 Global Competitiveness Report (up 2 notches compared to 2018). It was the fifth-largest trading nation in the world (and second in Europe after Germany). France is also the most visited destination in the world, as well the European Union's leading agricultural power.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2020, France was the world's 20th country by GDP per capita with $39,257 per inhabitant. In 2019, France was listed on the United Nations's Human Development Index with a value of 0.901 (indicating very high human development) and 23rd on the Corruption Perceptions Index in 2019.
Paris is a leading global city, and has one of the largest city GDP in the world. It ranks as the first city in Europe (and 3rd worldwide) by the number of companies classified in Fortunes Fortune Global 500. Paris produced €738 billion (or US$882 billion at market exchange rates) or around 1/3 of the economy of France''' in 2018 while the economy of the Paris metropolitan area — the largest in Europe with London—generates around 1/3 of France's GDP or around $1.0 trillion. Paris has been ranked as the 2nd most attractive global city in the world in 2019 by KPMG. La Défense, Paris's Central Business District, was ranked by Ernst & Young in 2017 as the leading business district in continental Europe, and fourth in the world. The OECD is headquartered in Paris, the nation's financial capital. The other major economic centres of the country include Lyon, Toulouse (centre of the European aerospace industry), Marseille and Lille.
France's economy entered the recession of the late 2000s later and appeared to leave it earlier than most affected economies, only enduring four-quarters of contraction. However, France experienced stagnant growth between 2012 and 2014, with the economy expanding by 0% in 2012, 0.8% in 2013 and 0.2% in 2014. Growth picked up in 2015 with a growth of 0.8%. This was followed by a growth of 1.1% for 2016, a growth of 2.2% for 2017, and a growth of 2.1% for 2018. According to the OFCE, the expected growth rate for 2019 was 1.3%.
Corporations
With 31 companies that are part of the world's biggest 500 companies, France was in 2020 the most represented European country in the 2020 Fortune Global 500, ahead of Germany (27 companies) and the UK (22).
As of August 2020, France was also the country that weighed the most on the Eurozone's EURO STOXX 50 (representing 36.4% of all total assets), ahead of Germany (35.2%).
Several French corporations rank amongst the largest in their industries such as AXA in insurance and Air France in air transportation. Luxury and consumer good are particularly relevant, with L'Oreal being the world's largest cosmetic company while LVMH and Kering are the world's two largest luxury product companies. In energy and utilities, GDF-Suez and EDF are amongst the largest energy companies in the world, and Areva is a large nuclear-energy company; Veolia Environnement is the world's largest environmental services and water management company; Vinci SA, Bouygues and Eiffage are large construction companies; Michelin ranks in the top 3 tire manufacturers; JCDecaux is the world's largest outdoor advertising corporation; BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole and Société Générale rank amongst the largest in the world by assets. Capgemini and Atos are among the largest technology consulting companies.
Carrefour is the world's second-largest retail group in terms of revenue; Total is the world's fourth-largest private oil company; Danone is the world's fifth-largest food company and the world's largest supplier of mineral water; Sanofi is the world's fifth-largest pharmaceutical company; Publicis is the world's third-largest advertising company; Groupe PSA is the world's 6th and Europe's 2nd largest automaker; Accor is the leading European hotel group; Alstom is one of the world's leading conglomerates in rail transport.
Rise and decline of dirigisme
France embarked on an ambitious and very successful program of modernization under state coordination. This program of dirigisme, mostly implemented by governments between 1944 and 1983, involved the state control of certain industries such as transportation, energy and telecommunications as well as various incentives for private corporations to merge or engage in certain projects.
The 1981 election of president François Mitterrand saw a short-lived increase in governmental control of the economy, nationalizing many industries and private banks. This form of increased dirigisme, was criticized as early as 1982. By 1983, the government decided to renounce dirigisme and start an era of rigueur ("rigor") or corporation. As a result, the government largely retreated from economic intervention; dirigisme has now essentially receded, though some of its traits remain. The French economy grew and changed under government direction and planning much more than in other European countries.
Despite being a widely liberalized economy, the government continues to play a significant role in the economy: government spending, at 56% of GDP in 2014, is the second-highest in the European Union. Labor conditions and wages are highly regulated. The government continues to own shares in corporations in several sectors, including energy production and distribution, automobiles, transportation, and telecommunications. However these shareholdings are being rapidly sold, the state keeping mostly symbolic stakes in those companies (aside from rail transportation and energy).
Government finance
In April and May 2012, France held a presidential election in which the winner François Hollande had opposed austerity measures, promising to eliminate France's budget deficit by 2017. The new government stated that it aimed to cancel recently enacted tax cuts and exemptions for the wealthy, raising the top tax bracket rate to 75% on incomes over a million euros, restoring the retirement age to 60 with a full pension for those who have worked 42 years, restoring 60,000 jobs recently cut from public education, regulating rent increases; and building additional public housing for the poor.
In June 2012, Hollande's Socialist Party won an overall majority in the legislative elections, giving it the capability to amend the French Constitution and allowing immediate enactment of the promised reforms. French government bond interest rates fell 30% to record lows, less than 50 basis points above German government bond rates.
In July 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the French government issued 10-years bonds which had negative interest rates, for the first time in its history (which means that investors buying French bonds will pay, rather than receive, interest for owning French sovereign debt).
France possesses in 2020 the fourth-largest gold reserves in the world.
National debt
The Government of France has run a budget deficit each year since the early 1970s. As of 2021, French government debt reached an equivalent of 118.6% of French GDP.
Under European Union rules, member states are supposed to limit their debt to 60% of output or be reducing the ratio structurally towards this ceiling, and run public deficits of no more than 3.0% of GDP.
In late 2012, credit-rating agencies warned that growing French government debt levels risked France's AAA credit rating, raising the possibility of a future credit downgrade and subsequent higher borrowing costs for the French government. In 2012 France was downgraded by ratings agencies Moody's, Standard&Poor's, and Fitch to the AA+ credit rating.
In December 2014 France's credit rating was further downgraded by Fitch (and S&P) to the AA credit rating.
Data
The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2020 (with IMF staff stimtates in 2021–2026). Inflation below 2% is in green.
Economic sectors
Industry
France was in 2019 the world's 8th largest manufacturer in terms of value added, according to the World Bank.
The leading industrial sectors in France are telecommunications (including communication satellites), aerospace and defense, ship building (naval and specialist ships), pharmaceuticals, construction and civil engineering, chemicals, textiles, and automobile production. The chemical industry is a key sector for France, helping to develop other manufacturing activities and contributing to economic growth.
Research and development spending is also high in France at 2.26% of GDP, the fourth-highest in the OECD.
Industry contributes to French exports: as of 2018, the Observatory of Economic Complexity estimates that France's largest exports "are led by Planes, Helicopters, and/or Spacecraft ($43.8B), Cars ($26B), Packaged Medicaments ($25.7B), Vehicle Parts ($16.5B), and Gas Turbines ($14.4B)."
Sophia Antipolis is the major technology hub for the economy of France.
Energy
France is the world-leading country in nuclear energy, home of global energy giants Areva, EDF and GDF Suez: nuclear power now accounts for about 78% of the country's electricity production, up from only 8% in 1973, 24% in 1980, and 75% in 1990. Nuclear waste is stored on site at reprocessing facilities.
Due to its heavy investment in nuclear power, France is the smallest emitter of carbon dioxide among the seven most industrialized countries in the world.
In 2006 electricity generated in France amounted to 548.8 TWh, of which:
428.7 TWh (78.1%) were produced by nuclear power generation
60.9 TWh (11.1%) were produced by hydroelectric power generation
52.4 TWh (9.5%) were produced by fossil-fuel power generation
21.6 TWh (3.9%) by coal power
20.9 TWh (3.8%) by natural-gas power
9.9 TWh (1.8%) by other fossil fuel generation (fuel oil and gases by-products of industry such as blast furnace gases)
6.9 TWh (1.3%) were produced by other types of power generation (essentially waste-to-energy and wind turbines)
The electricity produced by wind turbines increased from 0.596 TWh in 2004, to 0.963 TWh in 2005, and 2.15 TWh in 2006, but this still accounts only for 0.4% of the total production of electricity (as of 2006).
In November 2004, EDF (which stands for Electricité de France), the world's largest utility company and France's largest electricity provider, was floated with huge success on the French stock market. Notwithstanding, the French state still retains 70% of the capital.
Other electricity providers include Compagnie nationale du Rhône (CNR) and Endesa (through SNET).
Agriculture
France is the world's sixth largest agricultural producer and EU's leading agricultural power, accounting for about one-third of all agricultural land within the EU. In the early 1980s, France was the leading producer of the three principal grains of wheat, barley, and maize. Back in 1983, France produced around 24.8 million tonnes, which was a long way ahead of the United Kingdom and West Germany, the next two largest wheat producers.
Northern France is characterized by large wheat farms. Dairy products, pork, poultry, and apple production are concentrated in the western region. Beef production is located in central France, while the production of fruits, vegetables, and wine ranges from central to southern France. France is a large producer of many agricultural products and is currently expanding its forestry and fishery industries. The implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) have resulted in reforms in the agricultural sector of the economy.
As the world's second-largest agricultural exporter, France ranks just after the United States. The destination of 49% of its exports is other EU members states. France also provides agricultural exports to many poor African countries (including its former colonies) which face serious food shortages. Wheat, beef, pork, poultry, and dairy products are the principal exports.
Exports from the United States face stiff competition from domestic production, other EU member states, and third-world countries in France. US agricultural exports to France, totaling some $600 million annually, consist primarily of soybeans and soybean products, feeds and fodders, seafood, and consumer products, especially snack foods and nuts. French exports to the United States are much more high-value products such as its cheese, processed products and its wine.
The French agricultural sector receives almost €11 billion in EU subsidies. France's competitive advantage is mostly linked to the high quality and global renown of its produce, such as cheese and wine.
France produced, in 2018, 39.5 million tons of sugar beet (2nd largest producer in the world, just behind Russia), which serves to produce sugar and ethanol; 35.8 million tons of wheat (5th largest producer in the world); 12.6 million tons of maize (11th largest producer in the world); 11.2 million tons of barley (2nd largest producer in the world, only behind Russia); 7.8 million tons of potato (8th largest producer in the world); 6.2 million tons of grape (5th largest producer in the world); 4.9 million tons of rapeseed (4th largest producer in the world, behind Canada, China and India); 2.2 million tons of sugarcane; 1.7 million tons of apple (9th largest producer in the world); 1.3 million tons of triticale (4th largest producer in the world, only behind Poland, Germany and Belarus); 1.2 million tons of sunflower seed (9th largest producer in the world); 712 thousand tons of tomatoes; 660 thousand tons of linen; 615 thousand tons of dry pea; 535 thousand tons of carrot; 427 thousand tons of oats; 400 thousand tons of soy; in addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products.
Tourism
France is the world's most popular tourist destination with more than 83.7 million foreign tourists in 2014, ahead of Spain (58.5 million in 2006) and the United States (51.1 million in 2006). This figure excludes people staying less than 24 hours in France, such as northern Europeans crossing France on their way to Spain or Italy during the summer.
France is home to cities of much cultural interest (Paris being the foremost), beaches and seaside resorts, ski resorts, and rural regions that many enjoy for their beauty and tranquillity. France also attracts many religious pilgrims to Lourdes, a town in the Hautes-Pyrénées département, which hosts several million visitors a year.
According to figures from 2003, some popular tourist sites include (in visitors per year): Eiffel Tower (6.2 million), Louvre Museum (5.7 million), Palace of Versailles (2.8 million), Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (2.6 million), Musée d'Orsay (2.1 million), Arc de Triomphe (1.2 million), Centre Pompidou (1.2 million), Mont-Saint-Michel (1 million), Château de Chambord (711,000), Sainte-Chapelle (683,000), Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg (549,000), Puy de Dôme (500,000), Musée Picasso (441,000), Carcassonne (362,000). However, the most popular site in France is Disneyland Paris, with 9.7 million visitors in 2017
Arms industry
The French arms industry's main customer, for whom they mainly build warships, guns, nuclear weapons and equipment, is the French government.
Record high defence expenditure (currently at €35 billion), which was considerably increased under the government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, goes largely to the French arms industries.
During the 2000–2015 period, France was the fourth largest weapons exporter in the world.Arms trade: One chart that shows the biggest weapons exporters of the last five years, The Independent
French manufacturers export great quantities of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Greece, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Singapore and many others.
It was reported that in 2015, French arms sales internationally amounted to 17.4 billion U.S. dollars, more than double the figure of 2014. Vice News explained that "While the United Kingdom has lapsed somewhat in this regard, France has maintained a high-level of production of military equipment for land, air, and sea defense – an expensive approach that relies on the export of arms and technology."
Fashion and luxury goods
According to 2017 data compiled by Deloitte, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey (LVMH), a French brand, is the largest luxury company in the world by sales, selling more than twice the amount of its nearest competitor. Moreover, France also possesses 3 of the top 10 luxury goods companies by sales (LVMH, Kering SA, L'Oréal), more than any other country in the world.
Paris is considered one of the world's foremost fashion capitals, or even "the world's fashion capital".Top 10 Global Fashion Capitals, Fashion schools
The French tradition for haute couture has been estimated to start as early as the era of Louis XIV, the Sun King.
Education
Education in France is organized in a highly centralized manner, with many subdivisions. It is divided into the three stages of primary education (enseignement primaire), secondary education (enseignement secondaire), and higher education (enseignement supérieur). In French higher education, the following degrees are recognized by the Bologna Process (EU recognition): Licence and Licence Professionnelle (bachelor's degrees), and the comparably named Master and Doctorat degrees.
The Programme for International Student Assessment coordinated by the OECD currently ranks the overall knowledge and skills of French 15-year-olds as 26th in the world in reading literacy, mathematics, and science, below the OECD average of 493. France's performance in mathematics and science at the middle school level was ranked 23 in the 1995 Trends in International Math and Science Study.
Pupils can take apprenticeships to enter the labour market with the Baccalauréat Technologique. It allows pupils pursue short and technical studies (laboratory, design and applied arts, hotel and restaurant, management etc.).
Higher education in France was reshaped by the student revolts of May 1968. During the 1960s, French public universities responded to a massive explosion in the number of students (280,000 in 1962–63 to 500,000 in 1967–68) by stuffing approximately one-third of their students into hastily developed campus annexes (roughly equivalent to American satellite campuses) which lacked decent amenities, resident professors, academic traditions, or the dignity of university status. This is why the French higher education economy performs poorly compared with other high-performing countries such as England or Australia. France also hosts various catholic universities recognized by the state, the largest one being Lille Catholic University, as well branch colleges of foreign universities. They include Baruch College, the University of London Institute in Paris, Parsons Paris School of Art and Design and the American University of Paris. Eighteen million pupils and students are in the education system, over 2.4 million of whom are in higher education.
Transport
Transportation in France relies on one of the densest networks in the world with 146 km of road and 6.2 km of rail lines per 100 km2. It is built as a web with Paris at its center. The highly subsidised rail transport network makes up a relatively small portion of travel, most of which is done by car. However the high-speed TGV trains make up a large proportion of long-distance travel, partially because intercity buses were prevented from operating until 2015.
With 3,220 kilometers of high-speed train lines, France boast the 2nd most expansive network in the world, only after China.
Charles de Gaulle Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world by passenger traffic. Charles de Gaulle airport is third globally in the number of destinations served, and first in the number of countries served with non-stop flights.
France also boasts a number of seaports and harbours, including Bayonne, Bordeaux, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Brest, Calais, Cherbourg-Octeville, Dunkerque, Fos-sur-Mer, La Pallice, Le Havre, Lorient, Marseille, Nantes, Nice, Paris, Port-la-Nouvelle, Port-Vendres, Roscoff, Rouen, Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Malo, Sète, Strasbourg and Toulon. There are approximately 470 airports in France and by a 2005 estimate, there are three heliports. 288 of the airports have paved runways, with the remaining 199 being unpaved. The national carrier of France is Air France, a full service global airline which flies to 20 domestic destinations and 150 international destinations in 83 countries (including Overseas France) across all 6 major continents.
Foreign Investment
According to a study conducted by Ernst & Young, France was in 2020 the largest Foreign Direct Investment recipient in Europe, ahead of the UK and Germany.
EY attributed this as a "direct result of President Macron’s reforms of labor laws and corporate taxation, which were well received by domestic and international investors alike."
France scored 5th in the 2019 AT Kearney FDI Confidence Index, up 2 notches from its 2017 ranking.
Labour market
According to a 2011 report by the American Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), France's GDP per capita at purchasing power parity is similar to that of the UK, with just over US$35,000 per head. To explain why French per capita GDP is lower than that of the United States, the economist Paul Krugman stated that "French workers are roughly as productive as US workers", but that the French have a lower workforce participation rate and "when they work, they work fewer hours". According to Krugman, the difference is due to the French making "different choices about retirement and leisure".
France has long suffered a relatively high unemployment rate, even during the years when its macroeconomic performances compared favorably with other advanced economies.
French employment rates for the working age population is one of the lowest of the OECD countries: in 2020, only 64.4% of the French working age population were in employment, compared to 77% in Japan, 76.1% in Germany, 75.4% in the UK, but the French employment rate was higher than that of the US, which stood at 62.5%. This gap is due to the low employment rate for 15–24 years old: 38% in 2012, compared to 47% in the OECD.
Since his election in 2017, Emmanuel Macron has introduced several labour market reforms which proved successful in decreasing the unemployment rate before the global COVID-19 recession struck. In late 2019, the French unemployment rate, though still high compared to other developed economies, was the lowest in a decade.
During the 2000s and 2010s, classical liberal and Keynesian economists sought out different solutions to the unemployment issue in France. Keynesian economists's theories led to the introduction of the 35-hour workweek law in 1999. Between 2004 and 2008, the government attempted to combat unemployment with supply-side reforms, but was met with fierce resistance; the contrat nouvelle embauche and the contrat première embauche (which allowed more flexible contracts) were of particular concern, and both were eventually repealed. The Sarkozy government used the revenu de solidarité active (in-work benefits) to redress the negative effect of the revenu minimum d'insertion (unemployment benefits which do not depend on previous contributions, unlike normal unemployment benefits in France) on the incentive to accept even jobs which are insufficient to earn a living. Neoliberal economists attribute the low employment rate, particularly evident among young people, to high minimum wages that would prevent low productivity workers from easily entering the labour market.
A December 2012 New York Times article reported on a "floating generation" in France that formed part of the 14 million unemployed young Europeans documented by the Eurofound research agency. This floating generation was attributed to a dysfunctional system: "an elitist educational tradition that does not integrate graduates into the work force, a rigid labour market that is hard to enter for newcomers, and a tax system that makes it expensive for companies to hire full-time employees and both difficult and expensive to lay them off". In July 2013, the unemployment rate for France was 11%.
In early April 2014, employers' federations and unions negotiated an agreement with technology and consultancy employers, as employees had been experiencing an extension of their work time through smartphone communication outside of official working hours. Under a new, legally binding labour agreement, around 250,000 employees will avoid handling work-related matters during their leisure time and their employers will, in turn, refrain from engaging with staff during this time.
Every day, about 80,000 French citizens are commuting to work in neighbouring Luxembourg, making it the biggest cross-border workforce group in the whole of the European Union. They are attracted by much higher wages for the different job groups than in their own country and the lack of skilled labour in the booming Luxembourgish economy.
External trade
In 2018, France was the 5th largest trading nation in the world, as well as the second-largest trading nation in Europe (after Germany). Its foreign trade balance for goods had been in surplus from 1992 until 2001, reaching $25.4 billion (25.4 G$) in 1998; however, the French balance of trade was hit by the economic downturn, and went into the red in 2000, reaching a US$15bn deficit in 2003. Total trade for 1998 amounted to $730 billion, or 50% of GDP—imports plus exports of goods and services. Trade with European Union countries accounts for 60% of French trade.
In 1998, US–France trade stood at about $47 billion – goods only. According to French trade data, US exports accounted for 8.7% – about $25 billion – of France's total imports. US industrial chemicals, aircraft and engines, electronic components, telecommunications, computer software, computers and peripherals, analytical and scientific instrumentation, medical instruments and supplies, broadcasting equipment, and programming and franchising are particularly attractive to French importers.
The principal French exports to the US are aircraft and engines, beverages, electrical equipment, chemicals, cosmetics, luxury products and perfume. France is the ninth-largest trading partner of the US.
Régions economy
The economic disparity between French regions is not as high as that in other European countries such as the UK, Italy or Germany, and higher than in countries like Sweden or Denmark, or even Spain. However, Europe's wealthiest and second largest regional economy, Ile-de-France (the region surrounding Paris), has long profited from the capital city's economic hegemony.
The most important régions are Île-de-France (world's 4th and Europe 1st wealthiest and largest regional economy), Rhône-Alpes (Europe's 5th largest regional economy thanks to its services, high-technologies, chemical industries, wines, tourism), Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (services, industry, tourism and wines), Nord-Pas-de-Calais (European transport hub, services, industries) and Pays de la Loire (green technologies, tourism). Regions like Alsace, which has a rich past in industry (machine tool) and currently stands as a high income service-specialized region, are very wealthy without ranking very high in absolute terms.
The rural areas are mainly in Auvergne, Limousin, and Centre-Val de Loire, and wine production accounts for a significant proportion of the economy in Aquitaine (Bordeaux (or claret)), Burgundy, and champagne produced in Champagne-Ardennes.
Departments economy and cities
Departmental income inequalities
In terms of income, important inequalities can be observed among the French départements.
According to the 2008 statistics of the INSEE, the Yvelines is the highest income department of the country with an average income of €4,750 per month. Hauts-de-Seine comes second, Essonne third, Paris fourth, Seine-et Marne fifth. Île-de-France is the wealthiest region in the country with an average income of €4,228 per month (and is also the wealthiest region in Europe) compared to €3,081 at the national level. Alsace comes second, Rhône-Alpes third, Picardy fourth, and Upper Normandy fifth.
The poorest parts of France are the French overseas departments, French Guiana being the poorest department with an average household income of €1,826. In Metropolitan France it is Creuse in the Limousin region which comes bottom of the list with an average household income of €1,849 per month.
Urban income inequalities
Huge inequalities can also be found among cities.
In the Paris metropolitan area, significant differences exist between the higher standard of living of Paris Ouest'' and lower standard of living in areas in the northern banlieues of Paris such as Seine-Saint-Denis.
For cities of over 50,000 inhabitants, Neuilly-sur-Seine, a western suburb of Paris, is the wealthiest city in France with an average household income of €5,939, and 35% earning more than €8,000 per month.
But within Paris, four arrondissements surpass wealthy Neuilly-sur-Seine in household income: the 6th, the 7th, the 8th and the 16th; the 8th "arrondissement" being the wealthiest district in France (the other three following it closely as 2nd, 3rd and 4th wealthiest ones).
Poverty
An OECD study from the early 1970s estimated that 16% of the French population lived in poverty, compared with 13% in the United States, 11% in Canada, 7.5% in the United Kingdom, and 3% in Germany. Other national estimates at the time were 13% (the United States), 11% (Canada), 8% (Australia), 5% (Norway), and 3.5% (Sweden).
In comparison with the average French workers, foreign workers tended to be employed in the hardest and lowest-paid jobs. They also live in poor conditions. A 1972 study found that foreign workers earned 17% less than their French counterparts, although this national average concealed the extent of inequality. Foreign workers were more likely to be men in their prime working years in the industrial areas, which generally had higher rates of pay than elsewhere.
Wealth
Overview
In 2010, the French had an estimated wealth of US$14.0 trillion for a population of 63 million.
In terms of aggregate wealth, the French are the wealthiest Europeans, accounting for more than a quarter of wealthiest European households. Globally, the French nation ranks fourth-wealthiest.
In 2010, wealth per French adult was a little higher than $290,000, down from a pre-crisis high of $300,000 in 2007. According to this ratio, the French are the wealthiest in Europe. The tax on wealth is paid by 1.1M of people in France, the payment of this tax starts when a €1.3M of assets is reached (there is a discount on the principal residence value).
Almost every French household has at least $1,000 in assets. Proportionally, there are twice as many French with assets of over $10,000 and four times as many French with assets of over $100,000 than the world average.
The French are also among the least indebted populations in the developed world with personal debt accounting for "little more than 10% of household assets".
Millionaires
France has the third-highest number of millionaires in Europe as of 2017. There were 1.617 million millionaire households (measured in terms of US dollars) living in France in 2017, behind the UK (2.225M) and Germany (1.637).
The wealthiest man in France is the LVMH CEO and owner Bernard Arnault, who according to Forbes briefly held the position of the richest man in the world at the end of May 2021.
See also
Economy of France in French Guiana, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, New Caledonia, Réunion, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Wallis and Futuna
Taxation in France
List of French inventions and discoveries
Economic history of France
Economy of Paris
Poverty in France
General
France
Economy of Europe
Economy of the European Union
Notes and references
External links
National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies – Insee
Banque de France
World Bank: France Trade Statistics
France – OECD
France profile at the CIA World Factbook
France profile at The World Bank
France Business Facts
France
France
France
France
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Woodbridge Township is a township in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. The township is both a regional hub for Central New Jersey and a major bedroom suburb of New York City in the much larger New York Metropolitan Area, located within the core of the Raritan Valley region. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township had a total population of 99,585, reflecting an increase of 2,382 (+2.5%) from the 97,203 counted in the 2000 Census, which had in turn increased by 4,117 (+4.4%) from the 93,086 counted in the 1990 Census. Woodbridge was the sixth-most-populous municipality in New Jersey in 2000 and 2010. Woodbridge hosts the intersection of the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, the two busiest highways in the state, and also serves as the headquarters for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.
According to Joshua Coffin, the early settlers included "Captain John Pike, the ancestor of General Zebulon Montgomery Pike, who was killed at the battle of Queenstown in 1813; Thomas Bloomfield, the ancestor of Joseph Bloomfield, some years governor of New Jersey, for whom the township of Bloomfield, New Jersey is named; John Bishop, senior and junior; Jonathan Haynes; Henry Jaques; George March; Stephen Kent; Abraham Toppan, junior; Elisha Ilsley; Hugh March; John Bloomfield; Samuel Moore; Nathaniel Webster; John Ilsley; and others." Woodbridge was the site of the first gristmill in New Jersey. The mill was built by Jonathan Singletary Dunham (married to Mary Bloomfield, relative of Joseph Bloomfield).
History
The Township of Woodbridge is the oldest original township in New Jersey and was granted a royal charter on June 1, 1669, by King Charles II of England. It was reincorporated on October 31, 1693. Woodbridge Township was incorporated by the Township Act of 1798 of the New Jersey Legislature on February 21, 1798, as one of the initial 104 townships incorporated in the state under the Township Act. Portions of the township were taken to form Rahway (April 19, 1858), Raritan Township (March 17, 1870, now Edison Township) and Roosevelt (April 11, 1906, now Carteret). The township is named after Reverend John W. Woodbridge (1613–1696) of Newbury, Massachusetts, who settled in the future township in 1664.
Woodbridge was the site of one of America's deadliest rail accidents on February 6, 1951, when a crowded commuter train derailed with 85 deaths. The victims are memorialized by a pair of historical markers, installed by New Jersey Transit in 2002 and by Woodbridge Township in 2013.
In October 1982, Woodbridge made national news when, for the first time in the United States, local authorities enacted a safety measure under which people were banned from using the then-popular Sony Walkman cassette players in public, while riding a bike, crossing the street, or driving a car. Violators could be fined $50 and spend up to 15 days in jail. As of 2022, Section 3-10 of the township code bars the use of earphones and headphones by bicyclists, those driving vehicles and by pedestrians and joggers whie on public streets.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the township had a total area of 24.61 square miles (63.74 km2), including 23.26 square miles (60.24 km2) of land and 1.35 square miles (3.50 km2) of water (5.50%).
The township borders Carteret, Edison, Perth Amboy and Sayreville in Middlesex County; Clark, Linden and Rahway in Union County. Its border with the borough of Staten Island in New York City is in the Arthur Kill.
Area codes 732 and 848 are used in Woodbridge.
Climate
The township has a hot-summer humid continental climate (Dfa) similar to most of metropolitan NE New Jersey. This borders a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) in Port Reading near the Arthur Kill. The local hardiness zone is 7a.
Communities
There are distinct communities within Woodbridge Township. Several of these communities have their own ZIP Codes, and many are listed by the United States Census Bureau as census-designated places (CDPs), but they are all unincorporated communities and neighborhoods within the Township that, together, make up Woodbridge Township.
Avenel (with 2010 Census population of 17,011), Colonia (17,795), Fords (15,187), Iselin (18,695), Port Reading (3,728), Sewaren (2,756), Woodbridge or Woodbridge Proper (19,265) are census-designated places and unincorporated communities located within Woodbridge Township.
Other unincorporated communities, localities and place names located partially or completely within the township include: Boynton Beach, Demarest Hill Top, Edgars, Fairfield, Hazelton, Hopelawn, Keasbey, Lynn Woodoaks, Menlo Park Terrace,, Ostrander, Saint Stephens, Sand Hills, Shore View, Union and Woodbridge Oaks.
Demographics
2010 Census
The Census Bureau's 2006-2010 American Community Survey showed that (in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars) median household income was $79,277 (with a margin of error of +/- $2,537) and the median family income was $88,656 (+/- $2,537). Males had a median income of $60,139 (+/- $1,971) versus $46,078 (+/- $1,635) for females. The per capita income for the township was $32,144 (+/- $717). About 3.8% of families and 5.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.9% of those under age 18 and 6.6% of those age 65 or over.
2000 Census
As of the 2000 United States Census there were 97,203 people, 34,562 households, and 25,437 families residing in the township. The population density was 4,224.5 people per square mile (1,631.0/km2). There were 35,298 housing units at an average density of 1,534.1/sq mi (592.3/km2). The racial makeup of the township was 70.83% White, 8.75% African American, 0.17% Native American, 14.46% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 3.30% from other races, and 2.46% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.21% of the population.
As of the 2000 Census, 9.19% of Woodbridge Township's residents identified themselves as being of Indian American ancestry, which was the tenth-highest of any municipality in the United States and the fifth highest in New Jersey — behind Edison (17.75%), Plainsboro Township (16.97%), Piscataway Township (12.49%) and South Brunswick Township (10.48%) — of all places with 1,000 or more residents identifying their ancestry.
There were 34,562 households, out of which 33.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.1% were married couples living together, 11.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.4% were non-families. 21.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.71 and the average family size was 3.19.
In the township the population was spread out, with 22.4% under the age of 18, 7.1% from 18 to 24, 34.8% from 25 to 44, 22.3% from 45 to 64, and 13.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 100.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.0 males.
The median income for a household in the township was $60,683, and the median income for a family was $68,492. Males had a median income of $49,248 versus $35,096 for females. The per capita income for the township was $25,087. About 3.2% of families and 4.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4.7% of those under age 18 and 5.3% of those age 65 or over.
Economy
Woodbridge Center, with a gross leasable area of , is the third-biggest mall in New Jersey, behind Westfield Garden State Plaza and Freehold Raceway Mall.
Wakefern Food Corporation, owner of ShopRite, has its headquarters in Keasbey in the township. Woodbridge has authorized dispensaries for the sale of medical marijuana.
Parks and recreation
In the center of Woodbridge Heards Brook passes through Heards Brook Park. Described as "the most preferred tourist attraction in Woodbridge," it has a wooded area, picnic tables, tree-lined stone pathways, basketball courts and "stunning views of the brook." The Rutgers University floodplain plan is to integrate smaller areas of park land in the eastern portion of Heards Brook into the larger area of open spaces with a bioswale.
In 2013, the Ernest L. Oros Wildlife Preserve was dedicated; the Preserve occupies along the Woodbridge River and has restored the river and adjacent land as a nature preserve. Activities include hiking, boating, bird watching, and picnicking. Many bird species have been observed along the river, particularly at the Oros Preserve. Bird sightings include wading birds (great blue herons and great egrets), the bald eagle, belted kingfishers and Canada goose. Eight mammal species have been noted, including raccoon and red fox; nine fish species have been identified, including the American eel. The Preserve has been called "an important hot spot in an otherwise highly developed area." Within the preserve is the Butterfly Garden. Downstream and north of Port Reading Avenue is Woodbridge River Park. It covers , and has been described as "loaded with channels, backwaters, oxbows and suitable for canoes."
The Middlesex Greenway is a long rail trail, a former Lehigh Valley Railroad rail line between Metuchen and Woodbridge. It makes up a portion of the East Coast Greenway.
Merrill Park is a park along the banks of the South Branch Rahway River, fully renovated in 2013. It has sports facilities, playgrounds, bike paths and walkways.
James Parker founded the first printing press in New Jersey in 1751; his building has been restored with an old working printing press. It is located in Parker Press Park, Woodbridge Proper; the park has concert series in the summer.
Woodbridge Community Center has a gym, miniature golf course, batting cages, a pool, community rooms, a playground, and also has "The Arenas", which have a roller skating rink with arcade and an ice skating rink.
Joseph Medwick Park is a Middlesex County Park, shared with Carteret, along banks of the Rahway River. It is part of the Rahway River Greenway Plan.
Government
Local government
Woodbridge is governed within the Faulkner Act, formally known as the Optional Municipal Charter law, under the Mayor-Council system of municipal government. The township is one of 71 municipalities (of the 565) statewide that use this form of government. The governing body is comprised of a directly elected mayor and a nine-member Township Council, with all officials elected to staggered four-year terms of office on a partisan basis as part of the November general election in odd-numbered years. The council is comprised of four members elected at-large and five members elected from each of the township's five wards. The at-large and mayoral seats come up together for vote followed two years later by the five ward seats. The Township Council is the legislative body of Woodbridge Township.
, the Mayor of Woodbridge Township is Democrat John McCormac, whose term of office ends December 31, 2023. McCormac was first elected on November 7, 2006, and sworn in on November 14, 2006. McCormac replaced Frank G. Pelzman, who became mayor on January 17, 2002, when former mayor James E. McGreevey resigned to become governor. Members of the Township Council are Council President Lizbeth DeJesus (D, 2019; at-large), Council Vice President Brian F. Small (D, 2023; at-large), Kyle M. Anderson (D, 2023; at-large), Howie Bauer (D, 2021; Second Ward), Nancy Drumm (D, 2021; First Ward), Gregg M. Ficarra (D, 2023; at-large), Virbhadra N. "Viru" Patel (D, 2021; Fourth Ward) and Cory S. Spillar (D, 2021; Third Ward).
In August 2015, the Township Council selected Cory Spillar from a list of three candidates nominated by the Democratic municipal committee to fill the Third Ward seat that had been held by Council President Michele Charmello until her resignation the previous month to take a position in Pittsburgh. The council chose new leadership, promoting Nancy Drumm from vice president to president (to replace Charmello) and Rick Dalina as vice president.
Federal, state and county representation
Woodbridge Township is located in the 6th Congressional District and is part of New Jersey's 19th state legislative district. Prior to the 2010 Census, Woodbridge Township had been split between the and the , a change made by the New Jersey Redistricting Commission that took effect in January 2013, based on the results of the November 2012 general elections.
Politics
As of March 23, 2011, there were a total of 54,674 registered voters in Woodbridge Township, of which 20,900 (38.2%) were registered as Democrats, 6,135 (11.2%) were registered as Republicans and 27,611 (50.5%) were registered as Unaffiliated. There were 28 voters registered to other parties.
In the 2012 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 62.2% of the vote (22,386 cast), ahead of Republican Mitt Romney with 36.7% (13,200 votes), and other candidates with 1.1% (386 votes), among the 36,301 ballots cast by the township's 55,262 registered voters (329 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 65.7%. In the 2008 presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama received 55.9% of the vote (21,590 cast), ahead of Republican John McCain with 42.0% (16,251 votes) and other candidates with 1.2% (472 votes), among the 38,657 ballots cast by the township's 55,075 registered voters, for a turnout of 70.2%. In the 2004 presidential election, Democrat John Kerry received 53.5% of the vote (19,662 ballots cast), outpolling Republican George W. Bush with 45.1% (16,589 votes) and other candidates with 0.7% (367 votes), among the 36,770 ballots cast by the township's 51,913 registered voters, for a turnout percentage of 70.8.
In the 2013 gubernatorial election, Republican Chris Christie received 58.9% of the vote (12,122 cast), ahead of Democrat Barbara Buono with 39.7% (8,183 votes), and other candidates with 1.4% (286 votes), among the 21,064 ballots cast by the township's 56,121 registered voters (473 ballots were spoiled), for a turnout of 37.5%. In the 2009 gubernatorial election, Republican Chris Christie received 50.1% of the vote (11,987 ballots cast), ahead of Democrat Jon Corzine with 41.9% (10,029 votes), Independent Chris Daggett with 7.2% (1,710 votes) and other candidates with 1.1% (261 votes), among the 23,913 ballots cast by the township's 53,843 registered voters, yielding a 44.4% turnout.
Education
The Woodbridge Township School District serves students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. All schools in the district are accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Secondary Schools. The district's three high schools offer more than 150 courses, including Advanced Placement, college preparatory, business, vocational and cooperative work/study programs.
As of the 2018–19 school year, the district, comprised of 26 schools, had an enrollment of 13,888 students and 1,122.7 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.4:1. Schools in the district (with 2018–19 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics) are
Mawbey Street School #1 (365; K-5 - built 1962),
Avenel Street School #4&5 (398; K-5 - built 1912),
Port Reading School #9 (392; K-5 - built 1962),
Ross Street School #11 (383; K-5 - built 1920),
Ford Avenue School #14 (247; K-5 - built 1924),
Indiana Avenue School #18 (514; K-5 - built 1955),
Menlo Park Terrace #19 (349; K-5 - built 1958),
Claremont Avenue School #20 (305; K-5 - built 1958),
Oak Ridge Heights School #21 (289; K-5 - built 1959),
Lynn Crest School #22 (336; K-5 - built 1959),
Woodbine Avenue School #23 (506; K-5 - built 1960),
Kennedy Park School #24 (317; PreK-5 - built 1960),
Lafayette Estates School #25 (483; K-5 - built 1960),
Robert Mascenik School #26 (312; K-5 - built 1960),
Pennsylvania Avenue School #27 (339; K-5 - built 1964),
Matthew Jago School #28 (406; K-5 - built 1969),
Oak Tree Road School #29 (524; K-5 - opened 2018)
Avenel Middle School (590; 6-8),
Colonia Middle School (619; 6-8),
Fords Middle School (653; 6-8),
Iselin Middle School (748; 6-8),
Woodbridge Middle School (516; 6-8),
Colonia High School (1,325; 9-12),
John F. Kennedy Memorial High School (1,324; 9-12),
Reaching Individual Student Excellence (RISE) (30; 9-12) and
Woodbridge High School (1,473; 9-12).
Transportation
Roads and highways
, the township had a total of of roadways, of which were maintained by the municipality, by Middlesex County, by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.
The Garden State Parkway extends through the Township, including exits 127 to 131. The Parkway connects Sayreville in the south to Clark in the north. In addition, the New Jersey Turnpike (Interstate 95) passes through Woodbridge Township for about , and is accessible at Exit 11 (which features a 24-lane toll gate). The Turnpike's Grover Cleveland service area is located between Interchanges 11 and 12 northbound at milepost 92.9 and the Thomas Edison service area is located between Interchanges 11 and 12 southbound at milepost 92.9.
U.S. Route 1 and U.S. Route 9 serve the township and merge heading north of the township as the U.S. Route 1/9 concurrency. Other roadways passing through the township are Route 27, Route 35, Route 184, and Route 440.
The 15-lane Driscoll Bridge on the Garden State Parkway and the adjacent 6-lane Edison Bridge on U.S. Route 9 both span the Raritan River, connecting Woodbridge Township on the north with Sayreville on the south.
The first cloverleaf interchange in the world, the Woodbridge Cloverleaf, opened in 1929 at the intersection of Route 25 (now U.S. Route 1/9) and Route 4 (now Route 35).
Public transportation
There are three train stations in the township: Metropark, Avenel and Woodbridge. Service is provided at Metropark by NJ Transit's Northeast Corridor Line and at Avenel and Woodbridge on the North Jersey Coast Line. The Metropark station also offers Amtrak Northeast Corridor services to Newark (Penn Station), New York (Penn Station), Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Boston. In September 2019, NJ Transit initiated increased daily service at the Avenel station and announced the resumption of weekend service after more than 20 years.
NJ Transit provides bus service on the 115 and 116 routes to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, on the 48 to Elizabeth and local service on the 801, 802, 803, 804, 805, 810, 813 and 815.
Woodbridge Floodplain
Woodbridge's geographical features make it prone to repeated flooding. It is surrounded by water on three sides, the Arthur Kill, a tidal strait to the east, and tidal rivers to the south, Raritan River, and north, Rahway River; and, much of the developed land in Woodbridge has low elevations, as little as five feet above sea level. About 19% of Woodbridge Township lies within FEMA's flood hazard areas. There is a long history of tidal flooding along the Woodbridge River in Woodbridge Proper, the Raritan in Keasbey and the Arthur Kill in Sewaren and Port Reading. In addition to tidal flooding, fluvial flooding is common. Woodbridge streams and rivers have been described as having a "high flow, flashy nature." The land is relatively impervious, and flooding is exacerbated by steep slopes and urban cover. Flooding in the South Branch Rahway River and Pumpkin Patch Brook hazard zones is predominantly fluvial. Prolonged coastal storms (nor'easters), which combine tidal and fluvial flooding, along with flow constrictions, cause an increase in the duration of flooding of the Woodbridge River and its tributaries, Heards Brook and Wedgewood Brook, which may last for days before water levels subside. Frequency of flooding has increased over time. Sea levels are rising and residential areas have moved into previous marsh land, decreasing the ability of the land to absorb excess water. A 1770 map shows that all land surrounding the Woodbridge River was salt marshes. In October 2012, New Jersey was devastated by Hurricane Sandy and Woodbridge suffered significant flood damage. One of the most affected neighborhoods from Hurricane Sandy was Watson-Cramptom, an area adjacent to the Woodbridge River; prior to 2009 this area was zoned for high density residential housing, including an area of wetlands and meadows. When the Sandy came to this area, it was "characterized as a tsunami-like water wall," destroying adjoining homes. After Sandy, using money from the New Jersey Buyout Program, Woodbridge began buying out and demolishing many residential properties in the flood hazard areas. The plan is to restore the Woodbridge flood zones to their original riparian environment. Woodbridge's actions and plans have been called a "slow motion evacuation from climate change." As people move out of flood hazard areas, they will be replaced by a "floodplain forest of native trees, shrubs and grass," to help absorb water from rising sea levels. Despite existing risks and predictions that flooding will worsen in coming decades as a result of rising sea levels, some property owners have been unwilling to sell. These holdouts impact the goal of creating land buffers of entire emptied blocks between rivers and homes.
Points of interest
The Jonathan Singletary Dunham House was built near the location of the earliest grist mill in New Jersey by Jonathan Singletary Dunham who was a Member of the New Jersey Provincial Congress.
The Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center is a correctional facility operated by the New Jersey Department of Corrections. The facility, located in the Avenel section of the Township, provides treatment to convicted sex offenders.
East Jersey State Prison is a male prison facility in Woodbridge Township, on the border of Rahway. However, the mailing address is in Rahway and the facility was known until 1988 as Rahway State Prison, leading many to believe the facility was located there.
J. J. Bitting Brewing Co., established in 1997, was the first brewery to operate in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, since the repeal of prohibition in 1933. The three-story restaurant resides in a restored 100-year-old brick building that once housed the J. J. Bitting Coal and Feed Depot that serviced the farming community of Woodbridge.
St. James Catholic Church, founded in 1860, has become one of the largest parishes in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Metuchen.
Notable people
People who were born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with Woodbridge Township include:
Antonio Alfano, American football defensive tackle for the Colorado Buffaloes.
Nicholas L. Bissell (1947–1996), county prosecutor of Somerset County who committed suicide after being charged with embezzlement, tax fraud and abuse of power.
Joseph Bloomfield (1753–1823), 4th Governor of New Jersey was born in Woodbridge Township.
Percy Edgar Brown (1885–1937), soil scientist at Iowa State University, best known for the book, Soils of Iowa
John Carlson (born 1990), professional ice hockey defenseman who has played in the NHL for the Washington Capitals.
Craig Coughlin (born 1958), politician, who has served in the New Jersey General Assembly since 2010, where he represents the 19th Legislative District.
Lou Creekmur (1927–2009), left offensive tackle / guard who played in the NFL for the Detroit Lions and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Clarence Madison Dally (1865–1904), glassblower and assistant to Thomas Edison.
Tom DeSanto (born 1968), film producer and screenwriter best known for his work with long-time friend Bryan Singer, especially with his contributions to the first two X-Men movies.
Jonathan Singletary Dunham (1640–1724), Member of the New Jersey Provincial Congress.
Robbie E (born 1983), professional wrestler with Impact Wrestling on POP TV.
John J. Fay Jr. (1927–2003), member of the New Jersey General Assembly and the New Jersey Senate.
Arline Friscia, member of the New Jersey General Assembly who also served on the Woodbridge Township Council.
Najee Glass (born 1994), sprinter.
John Gorka (born 1958), folk musician.
Kelsey Grammer (born 1955), actor who appeared in Frasier and Cheers.
Bob Grant (1929–2013), radio host who broadcast many of his shows from the Reo Diner.
John A. Hall (1877–1919), collegiate football player who was head coach of the Carlisle Indians football team in 1898.
Tom Higgins (born 1954), NFL and Canadian football player and coach.
Edward M. Hundert, medical educator and academic administrator.
Jack H. Jacobs (born 1945), graduated 1962; Medal of Honor recipient, awarded 1969.
Kyle Johnson (born 1978), fullback with the Denver Broncos from class of 1996.
Michael Jones (born 1987), actor, voice actor, and YouTube personality who works for Rooster Teeth.
Pat Lamberti (1937–2007), American football linebacker who played for the New York Titans and Denver Broncos in 1961.
Eric LeGrand (born 1990), football player, writer, actor, speaker.
Praise Martin-Oguike (born 1993), American football defensive end who played in the XFL for the Seattle Dragons.
Glen Mason (born 1950), former football player and coach who served as the head football coach at Kent State University from 1986 to 1987, the University of Kansas from 1988 to 1996, and the University of Minnesota from 1997 to 2006, compiling a career college football record of 123–121–1.
Laura McCullough (born 1960), poet.
John McCormac, former New Jersey Treasurer and Mayor of Woodbridge Township.
Jim McGreevey (born 1957), former Woodbridge mayor and Governor of New Jersey.
Melanie McGuire (born 1972), best known for being the perpetrator in the media-dubbed "suitcase murder" who was convicted of murdering her husband in April 2007 and sentenced to life in prison.
Stephen A. Mikulak, politician who served two terms in the New Jersey General Assembly, from 1992 to 1996, where he represented the 19th Legislative District.
Joseph Moore (1732–1793), Quaker peace negotiator sent to the 1793 talks between Native leaders of the Western Confederacy and American government representatives at Sandusky, Ohio.
Jazlyn Moya (born 1997), footballer who plays as a forward for United Women's Soccer club New Jersey Copa FC and the Dominican Republic women's national team.
Tim Mulqueen (born 1966), soccer goalkeeping coach and former goalkeeper who coached the US National Team at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Sydney P. Noe (1885–1969), numismatist, specializing in Greek coins, who was librarian, then curator, of the American Numismatic Society.
Ernest L. Oros (c. 1924–2012), member of the New Jersey General Assembly from 1992 to 1996.
James Parker (1714–1770), Colonial American printer and publisher who established the state's first permanent printing press in 1751 in Woodbridge.
Frank Pelzman (c. 1935–2006), former Woodbridge mayor.
John Pike (1613–1688/89), one of the founders and earliest settlers of Woodbridge Township.
Eleanor Platt (1910–1974), sculptor.
Dith Pran (1942–2008), photojournalist with The New York Times, human rights activist and survivor of the killing fields of Cambodia, whose life was portrayed in The Killing Fields.
Dory Previn (1925–2012), singer-songwriter.
Dawn Marie Psaltis (born 1970) a.k.a. Dawn Marie, professional wrestling personality.
Zack Rosen (born 1989), All-American basketball player at Penn who plays professionally for Maccabi Ashdod in Israel.
Richie Sambora (born 1959), former member of the band Bon Jovi.
Tom Scharpling (born 1969), comedian, host of The Best Show and a writer/executive producer of the television series Monk.
Bret Schundler (born 1959), mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey.
Anthony Seratelli (born 1983), professional baseball second baseman who plays for the Saitama Seibu Lions of Nippon Professional Baseball.
Chris Smith (born 1953), U.S. Representative for New Jersey's 4th congressional district since 1981.
James Swann (born 1964), serial killer whose random drive-by shotgun shootings in Washington, D.C. in 1993 earned him the nickname "The Shotgun Stalker" in the press.
Norman Tanzman (1918–2004), served in the New Jersey General Assembly from 1962 to 1968 and in the New Jersey Senate from 1968 to 1974.
Tico Torres (born 1953), drummer and percussionist for the rock band Bon Jovi.
Alan Turtletaub (1913–2005), founder of The Money Store.
Marc Turtletaub (born 1946), movie producer.
Benjamin A. Vail (1844–1924), politician who served as president of the New Jersey Senate.
Joseph Vitale (born 1954), State Senator and former mayor.
Rohit Vyas, broadcast journalist.
Dagmara Wozniak (born 1988), sabre fencer named to the U.S. Olympic team at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2012 Summer Olympics in women's sabre.
References
External links
Woodbridge Township website
Woodbridge InJersey, community blog
1669 establishments in New Jersey
Cannabis in New Jersey
Faulkner Act (mayor–council)
Populated places established in 1664
Townships in Middlesex County, New Jersey
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Standard Romanian (i.e. the Daco-Romanian language within Balkan Romance) shares largely the same grammar and most of the vocabulary and phonological processes with the other three surviving varieties of Balkan Romance, namely Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian.
As a Romance language, Romanian shares many characteristics with its more distant relatives: Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, etc. However, Romanian has preserved certain features of Latin grammar that have been lost elsewhere. This could be explained by a host of arguments such as: relative isolation in the Balkans, possible pre-existence of identical grammatical structures in its substratum (as opposed to the substrata over which the other Romance languages developed), and existence of similar elements in the neighboring languages. One Latin element that has survived in Romanian while having disappeared from other Romance languages is the morphological case differentiation in nouns. Nevertheless, declensions have been reduced to only three forms (nominative/accusative, genitive/dative, and vocative) from the original six or seven. Another might be the retention of the neuter gender in nouns, although in synchronic terms, Romanian neuter nouns can also be analysed as "ambigeneric", that is as being masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural (see below) and even in diachronic terms certain linguists have argued that this pattern, as well as that of case differentiation, was in a sense "re-invented" rather than a "direct" continuation of the Latin neuter.
Romanian is attested from the 16th century. The first Romanian grammar was by
Samuil Micu and Gheorghe Șincai, published in 1780.
Many modern writings on Romanian grammar, in particular, most of those published by the Romanian Academy (), are prescriptive; the rules regarding plural formation, verb conjugation, word spelling and meanings, etc. are revised periodically to include new tendencies in the language.
Nouns
Gender
Romanian nouns are categorized into three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The neuter behaves like the masculine in the singular and the feminine in the plural, unlike the neuter in Latin which had distinct forms. Nouns which in their dictionary form (singular, nominative, with no article) end in a consonant or the vowel/semivowel -u are mostly masculine or neuter; if they end in -ă or -a they are usually feminine. In the plural, the ending -i corresponds generally to masculine nouns, whereas feminine and neuter nouns often end in -e. As there are many exceptions to these rules, each noun must be learned together with its gender.
Examples:
Masculine: ('man, human being'), ('ox'), ('tree');
Neuter: ('road'), ('present, gift'), ('example');
Feminine: ('grandmother'), ('book'), ('coffee').
For nouns designating people the grammatical gender can only be masculine or feminine, and is strictly determined by the biological sex, no matter the phonetics of the noun. For example, nouns like (father) and (priest) are masculine as they refer to male people, although phonetically they are similar to typical feminine nouns.
For native speakers, the general rule for determining a noun's gender relies on the "one-two" test, which consists in inflecting the noun to both the singular and the plural, together with the numbers one and two. Depending on the gender, the numbers will have different forms for each of the three genders: masculine nouns will be ; feminine nouns, ; neuter nouns, .
Masculine: , ('one human being', 'two human beings'), , ('one rabbit', 'two rabbits'). In this case both and are in their masculine forms.
Feminine: , ('one girl', 'two girls'), ('one bird', 'two birds'). In this case both and are in their feminine forms.
Neuter: , ('one body', 'two bodies'), , ('one drawer', 'two drawers'). In this case is in its masculine form while is in its feminine form. This is the only case in which the two numbers have different genders.
Romanian numbers generally have a single form regardless of the gender of the determined noun. Exceptions are the numbers ('one') ('two') and all the numbers made up of two or more digits when the last digit is 1 or 2; these have masculine and feminine forms. Just as in Russian, in Romanian there is no gender-neutral form for numbers, adjectives or other noun determiners.
Number
Romanian has two grammatical numbers: singular and plural. Morphologically, the plural form is built by adding specific endings to the singular form. For example, nominative nouns without the definite article form the plural by adding one of the endings -i, -uri, -e, or -le. The plural formation mechanism, often involving other changes in the word structure, is an intrinsic property of each noun and has to be learned together with it.
Examples:
-i: – ('tree'), – ('horse'), – ('father'), – ('boat');
-uri: – ('train'), – ('job, task'), – ('tent');
-e: – ('straw'), – ('table, meal'), – ('theater'), – ('museum');
-le: – ('star'), – ('coffee'), – ('pajama').
Case
Romanian has inherited three cases from Latin: nominative/accusative, dative/genitive and vocative. Morphologically, the nominative and the accusative are identical in nouns; similarly, the genitive and the dative share the same form (these pairs are distinct in the personal pronouns, however). The vocative is less used as it is normally restricted to nouns designating people or things which are commonly addressed directly. Additionally, nouns in the vocative often borrow the nominative form even when there is a distinct vocative form available.
The genitive-dative form can be derived from the nominative. If the noun is determined by a determiner other than the definite article (an indefinite article, a demonstrative, an indefinite quantifier), then the genitive-dative affixes are applied to this determiner, not to the noun, for example – ('a boy' – 'of/to a boy'); for feminine nouns the form used in the dative/genitive singular is most often identical to the nominative plural, for example – – (a book – of/to a book – two books). Similarly, if the noun is determined by the definite article (an enclitic in Romanian, see that section), the genitive-dative mark is added at the end of the noun together with the article, for example – ('the boy' – 'of/to the boy'), – ('the book' – 'of/to the book'). Masculine proper names designating people form the genitive-dative by placing the article before the noun: ('of/to Brâncuși'); the same applies to feminine names only when they don't have a typically feminine ending: .
In usual genitival phrases such as ('the name of the rose'), the genitive is only recognized by the specific ending (- in this example) and no other words are necessary. However, in other situations, usually if the noun modified by the genitive attribute is indefinite, the genitival article is required, as for example in ('some of the writer's works').
Romanian dative phrases exhibit clitic doubling similar to that in Spanish, in which the noun in the dative is doubled by a pronoun. The position of this pronoun in the sentence depends on the mood and tense of the verb. For example, in the sentence ('I give a present to [my] parents'), the pronoun doubles the noun without bringing any additional information.
As specified above, the vocative case in Romanian has a special form for most nouns. The tendency in contemporary Romanian is to use the nominative forms, however. The traditional vocative is retained in speech, however, especially in informal speech, or by people living in the countryside. It is seen as a mark of unrefined speech by the majority of city-dwellers, who refrain from its usage. The forms of the vocative are as follows. (Note that the vocative does not have both definite and indefinite forms. The following rules are to be applied for the indefinite form of the nouns):
Singular feminine nouns and proper names ending in an unstressed -ă/-a take the ending -o e.g. → ('girl!'). Some popular plurals are different, though: → ! ('Mary!').
Singular feminine nouns ending in an unstressed -e take the ending -eo e.g. → ! ('bridge!'). Sometimes, the e is dropped altogether.
Singular feminine nouns ending in a stressed -a take the ending -auo e.g. → ! ('stick!').
Singular masculine and neuter nouns ending in a consonant take the ending -ule e.g. → ! ('boy!'). The vocative for animate nouns is sometimes formed as if the noun were a proper name: → ! (see below).
Singular masculine and neuter nouns ending in unstressed -e/-ă take no extra ending (-Ø) e.g. → ! ('brother!').
Masculine proper names take the ending -e e.g. → ! ('Stephen!'). Some words also experience some change in their vowels ( → ! 'John!').
All plural nouns take the ending -lor e.g. → ! ('apples!').
Here are some examples of nouns completely inflected.
Articles
Definite article
An often cited peculiarity of Romanian, which it shares with Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Istro-Romanian, is that, unlike all other Romance languages, the definite articles are attached to the end of the noun as enclitics (as in Bulgarian, Macedonian, Albanian, and North Germanic languages) instead of being placed in front. These enclitic definite articles are believed to have been formed, as in other Romance languages, from Latin demonstrative pronouns. The table below shows the generally accepted etymology of the Romanian definite article.
Examples:
Masculine nouns (singular, nominative/accusative):
– ('forest' – 'the forest');
– ('tree' – 'the tree');
– ('brother' – 'the brother');
– ('father' – 'the father').
Neuter nouns (singular, nominative/accusative):
– ('theater' – 'the theater');
– ('place' – 'the place');
Feminine nouns (singular, nominative/accusative):
casă – casa (house – the house);
floare – floarea (flower – the flower);
cutie – cutia (box – the box);
stea – steaua (star – the star);
Indefinite article
The Romanian indefinite article, unlike the definite article, is placed before the noun, and has likewise derived from Latin:
(The Latin phrase nescio quid means "I don't know what".)
Nouns in the vocative case cannot be determined by an indefinite article.
Examples of indefinite article usage:
Masculine:
nominative/accusative: singular un copil (a child) – plural niște copii ([some] children);
genitive/dative: singular unui copil (of/to a child) – plural unor copii (of/to [some] children);
Neuter:
nominative/accusative: singular un loc (a place) – plural niște locuri ([some] places);
genitive/dative: singular unui loc (of/to a place) – plural unor locuri (of/to [some] places);
Feminine:
nominative/accusative: singular o masă (a table) – plural niște mese ([some] tables);
genitive/dative: singular unei mese (of/to a table) – plural unor mese (of/to [some] tables);
Article appended to adjectives
When a noun is determined by an adjective, the normal word order is noun + adjective, and the article (definite or indefinite) is appended to the noun. However, the word order adjective + noun is also possible, mostly used for emphasis on the adjective. Then, the article and the case marker, if any, are applied to the adjective instead:
Noun + adjective (normal order):
un student bun (a good student);
studentul bun (the good student);
unui student bun (to a good student);
studentului bun (to the good student).
Adjective + noun (reversed order):
un bun student (a good student);
bunul student (the good student);
unui bun student (to a good student);
bunului student (to the good student).
Demonstrative article
The demonstrative article is used to put emphasis on the relative superlative of adjectives. The forms are "cel" and "celui" (m. sg.), "cea" and "celei" (f. sg.), "cei" and "celor" (m. pl.) and "cele" and "celor" (f. pl.).
Genitival article
There are situations in Romanian when the noun in the genitive requires the presence of the so-called genitival (or possessive) article (see for example the section "Genitive" in "Romanian nouns"), somewhat similar to the English preposition of, for example in a map of China. In Romanian this becomes o hartă a Chinei, where "a" is the genitival article. The table below shows how the genitival articles depend on gender and number.
The genitival article also has genitive/dative forms, which are used only with a possessive pronoun. They are: alui (m. sg.), alei (f. sg.), and alor (pl., both genders). These forms are rarely used—especially the singular ones—and the sentences are usually rephrased to avoid them.
Adjectives
Romanian adjectives determine the quality of things. They can only fulfill the syntactical functions of attribute and of adjectival complement, which in Romanian is called nume predicativ (nominal predicative).
Adjective inflection
Adjectives in Romanian inflect for number and gender (and for case in the feminine singular genitive/dative). There are adjectives that have distinct forms for all combinations, some that don't distinguish between gender only in the plural, others that don't distinguish gender, and a few that don't distinguish either gender or number.
The adjective frumos (beautiful) has two endings, and four inflected forms. (see above table)
The adjective lung (long) has 3 forms: "lung" (m. sg.), "lungă" (f. sg.), and "lungi" (m. pl. and f. pl.).
The adjective verde (green) on the other hand, has one ending and two inflected forms.
The foreign borrowed adjective oranj (orange) is called invariable, as it has only one ending, and one inflected form. Adjectives that do not have only one inflected form (and thus one ending) are called variable.
Adjective syntax
Syntactical functions of the adjective can be:
Attribute, in case it defines a noun, pronoun or numeral. (e.g.: The blond boy is here. Băiatul blond este aici.)
Adjectival complement, in case it defines a copulative verb. (e.g.: The boy is blond. Băiatul este blond.)
Degrees of comparison
An adjective also can have degrees of comparison.
Positive Degree (frumos, beautiful)
Comparative Degree:
Of equality (la fel de frumos, as beautiful as)
Of inequality (note that the following degrees are written as "comparative of superiority/inferiority", not as "comparative of inequality of superiority/inferiority")
Of superiority (mai frumos, more beautiful)
Of inferiority (mai puțin frumos, less beautiful)
Superlative Degree:
Relative Superlative
Of superiority (cel mai frumos, the most beautiful)
Of inferiority (cel mai puțin frumos, the least beautiful)
Absolute Superlative (foarte frumos, very beautiful)
Of superiority ("foarte frumos", translated as "very beautiful")
Of inferiority ("foarte puțin frumos", roughly translated as "very little beautiful"). This form isn't used very much, though, as antonyms can be used ("foarte puțin frumos" becomes "foarte urât", "very little beautiful" becomes "very ugly")
Pronouns
Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns come in four different cases, depending on their usage in the phrase.
Nominative case
There are eight personal pronouns (pronume personale) in Romanian:
The pronouns above are those in the nominative case. They are usually omitted in Romanian unless it is necessary to disambiguate the meaning of a sentence. Usually, the verb ending provides information about the subject. The feminine forms of plural pronouns are used only for groups of persons or items of exclusively female gender. If the group contains elements of both genders, the masculine form is used. Pronouns in the vocative case in Romanian, which is used for exclamations, or summoning, also take the forms of the nominative case.
Accusative case
The accusative forms of the pronouns come in two forms: a stressed and an unstressed form:
The stressed form of the pronoun is used (in phrases that are not inverted) after the verb while the unstressed form is employed before the verb. Romanian requires both forms of a pronoun to be present in a sentence if a relative clause is employed, which also reverses the order of the forms (stressed before unstressed). Otherwise, the stressed form is usually left out, the only exception being its usage for adding emphasis to the pronoun.
Îl văd – I see him/it (a statement of fact)
Îl văd pe el – I see him (It is him that I see, and no other)
Fata pe care o văd – The girl whom I see
Dative case
The dative forms of the pronouns:
Genitive case
The genitive forms of the pronouns (also called possessive pronouns, pronume posesive):
The retention of the genitive, in the third person, is to be noted; the pronoun, like Latin eius, eorum, inflects according to the possessor, not according to the possessed.
Reflexive pronouns
These are the forms of the reflexive pronouns (pronume reflexive):
The above reflexive pronouns are in the accusative and dative cases, and in both stressed / unstressed forms. As is made clear, the reflexive pronouns are identical to the personal pronouns, with the exception of the 3rd person, which has entirely new forms. The genitival forms of the reflexive pronouns are the same for the 1st and 2nd persons, but also differ in the 3rd person singular, which is al său. This is a direct continuation of Latin usage; Latin suus was used only when the possessor was the subject of the sentence.
Polite pronouns
The polite pronouns (pronumele de politețe) are a way of addressing someone formally. They are normally used for interaction with strangers, or by children talking to adults whom they don't know well, or to teachers as a sign of respect. When used in the plural, the second person pronoun is a polite one, for use in formal occasions, or among unacquainted adults, whereas its singular forms are less polite, their use having become pejorative in modern use (see below).
The polite pronouns were derived from old Romanian phrases used for addressing the sovereign, such as , , ("Your Majesty", "Your Majesty (plural)", "His Majesty", literally "Your Reign", etc.). By means of vowel elision, became shortened to . It should also be noted that "mata", "mătăluță" and similar pronouns were considered polite pronouns in the last, but nowadays only rural communities use them (for example, between neighbours).
The polite pronouns all have the same forms in all cases (the only exception being , with the genitive/dative form of dumitale), and they exist only in the second and third person, due to their not being used to refer to oneself:
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
! colspan="2" |
! Singular
! Plural
|-
! colspan="2" style="text-align: left;" | Second person
| |
|-
! rowspan="2" style="text-align: left;" | Third person
! style="text-align: left;" | Masc.
|
| rowspan="2" |
|-
! style="text-align: left;" | Fem.
|
|}
The second person singular denotes a level of politeness that is between that of tu and that of . However, it is considered by some to be of the same degree of politeness as tu. It is generally found in conversation where old people are involved, as its use is slowly deprecating in favour of .
Demonstrative pronouns
There are many demonstrative pronouns (pronume demonstrative) in Romanian. They are classified as pronume de apropiere, pronume de depărtare, pronume de diferențiere, pronume de identitate, which mean, respectively, pronouns of proximity, pronouns of remoteness, pronouns of differentiation, and pronouns of identity.
Pronouns of proximity and remoteness
These pronouns describe objects which are either close to the speaker, or farther away from the speaker (formal register/informal register):
Pronouns of differentiation and identity
These pronouns describe objects either different from an aforementioned object or the same:
Intensive pronouns
The intensive pronouns and adjectives are used for emphasis.
Relative and interrogative pronounsPronumele relative și interogative, the two types of pronouns are identical in form but differ in usage. The relative pronouns are used to connect relative clauses to their main clause, but interrogative pronouns are used to form questions. The interrogative pronouns are usually written out with a question mark after them to differentiate them from their relative counterparts.
These are the most common relative/interrogative pronouns:
Negative and indefinite pronounsPronumele negative și nehotărâte, these two types of pronouns are used to express negation, as well as indefinite concepts. There are many indefinite pronouns, but only a limited number of negative pronouns.
The most common indefinite pronouns are:
The most common negative pronouns are:
Numbers
In Romanian grammar, unlike English, the words representing numbers are considered to form a distinct part of speech, called numeral (plural: numerale). Examples:
Cardinal
Proper: doi (two);
Multiplicative: îndoit (double);
Collective: amândoi (both);
Distributive: câte doi (in twos);
Fractional: doime (half) (pronounced );
Adverbial: de două ori (twice);
Ordinal: al doilea (the second).
Verbs
As in all Romance languages, Romanian verbs are inflected according to person, number, tense, mood, and voice. The usual word order in sentences is SVO (Subject – Verb – Object). Romanian verbs are traditionally categorized into four large conjugation groups depending on the ending in the infinitive mood. The actual conjugation patterns for each group are multiple.
First conjugation: verbs ending in –a (long infinitive in –are), such as a da, dare "to give", a cânta, cântare "to sing", including those ending in hiatus ea, such as a crea, creare "to create". Verbs ending orthographically in and are also included here as their conjugation pattern matches this group, although the long infinitive ends in –ere: a veghea, veghere "to ward".
Second conjugation: verbs ending in –ea (long infinitive in stressed -ere), only when ea is a diphthong, such as a putea, putere "can", a cădea, cădere "to fall".
Third conjugation: verbs ending in –e (long infinitive in unstressed –ere), such as a vinde, vindere "to sell", a crede, credere "to believe".
Fourth conjugation: verbs ending in –i or –î (long infinitive in –ire or –âre), such as a veni, venire "to come", a urî, urâre "to hate".
Adverbs
In Romanian, adverbs usually determine verbs (but could also modify a clause or an entire sentence) by adding a qualitative description to the action. Romanian adverbs are invariant and are identical in shape (being both homophones and homographs) to the corresponding adjective in its masculine singular form. A remarkable counterexample for this is the adjective-adverb pair bun-bine ("good" (masculine singular) – "well").
Some examples are
Băieții sunt jucători buni. – The boys are good players. (adjective)
Băieții joacă bine. – The boys play well. (adverb)
Cântecul acesta este frumos. – This song is beautiful. (adjective)
Cântăreața cântă frumos. – The singer sings beautifully. (adverb)
Prepositions
The preposition before a noun determines which case the noun must take.
No prepositions take nouns in the nominative case.
Prepositions with accusative
pe is used to introduce a direct object when it is represented by a proper name, in which case it does not have a lexical meaning. Pe is also used with the accusative to introduce a circumstantial object of location (engl. on).
cu (with) introduces the instrument of the action. It is used to indicate (among others) one's conversation partner, an association with an object, or a means of transport.
la (at) indicates the location or time of the action or its direction. More specific forms are în (in), spre (towards), pe la (around)
pentru (for) indicates the scope of an action, or the beneficiary thereof.
Prepositions with dative
The only prepositions that demand the Dative Case, are: grație (thanks to), datorită (through, with), mulțumită (thanks to), conform (as per), contrar (against), potrivit (according to), aidoma — archaic — (like, similar to), asemenea (such).
Prepositions with genitive
Other prepositions require the genitive case of nouns. Note that some prepositions of this sort have evolved from phrases with feminine nouns and, as a consequence, require a feminine possessive form when the object is a pronoun; e.g., împotriva mea (against me).
Interjections
In Romanian there are many interjections, and they are commonly used. Those that denote sounds made by animals or objects are called onomatopee, a form similar to the English language onomatopoeia. Below, some interjections and their approximative equivalent in English are shown.
Common interjections
Vai! – Oh, my! / Oh, dear!
Ah! – same as in English Oau! – Wow!
Of! – equivalent to a sigh
Hmmm... – said when thinking
Mamă-mamă – said when expressing something cool or extraordinary
Iată – somewhat like behold!Onomatopoeia
lip-lip – the sound made when slurping liquids (usually by dogs)
țuști – a sound designating a quick move
mor-mor – the sound a bear makes
cucurigu – the sound a rooster makes, cock-a-doodle-doo! ham-ham – the sound a dog makes, bark! miauuu – the sound a cat makes, meow! cip-cirip – the sound birds make, chirp! mu – the sound a cow makes, moo!Use within sentences
Within a sentence, interjections can function as attributes, verbal equivalents, or they can be used as filler, which has no syntactical function at all.
Attribute: Mi-am luat o fustă mamă-mamă. I bought a cool skirt. Verbal Equivalent: Iată-l pe Ion. Look, there is Ion Filler: Hmmm... Mă gândesc ce să fac. Hmmm... I am thinking about what to do.Phrase syntax
Romanian has terminology and rules for phrase syntax, which describes the way simple sentences relate to one another within a single complex sentence. There are many functions a simple sentence may take, their number usually being determined by the number of predicates. It is also noteworthy that Romanian terminology for the terms simple sentence, complex sentence, and phrase is somewhat counterintuitive. The Romanian term propoziție means as much as simple sentence (or clause). To describe a complex sentence (or compound sentence), Romanian uses the word frază, which can cause confusion with the English word phrase, which describes not a complex sentence, but a grouping of words. In consequence, Romanian doesn't have terms for the English noun phrase, or verb phrase, preferring the more commonly understood term predicate for the latter. The former has no formal equivalent in Romanian.
Simple sentences can be of two types: main clauses and subordinate clauses
Main clause
The main clause, within a complex sentence, does not rely on another sentence to be fully understood. In other words, it has stand-alone meaning. The following example has the verb phrase underlined.
Example:Am văzut copiii din curtea școlii.I have seen the children in the school courtyard.
Even though this sentence is long, it is still composed of a single simple sentence, which is a main clause.
Subordinate clause
A subordinate clause cannot have a stand-alone meaning. It relies on a main clause to give it meaning. It usually determines or defines an element of another clause, be it a main clause, or a subordinate one. The following example has the verb phrase underlined, and the element of relation, which is to say, the relative pronoun used to link the two sentences, in bold. The sentences are also separated and numbered.
Example:Am văzut copiii 1/ care sunt în curtea școlii. 2/I have seen the children 1/ who are in the school courtyard. 2/
There are also subordinate clauses other than the relative clause, which is an attributive clause, since it determines a noun, pronoun or numeral, and not a verb phrase. Here is a list of examples illustrating some of the remaining cases:
Direct Object Clause (propoziție subordonată completivă directă):Înțeleg 1/ ce zice profesoara. 2/I understand 1/ what the teacher is saying. 2/
Indirect Object Clause (propoziție subordonată completivă indirectă):Mă gândesc 1/ la ce spune profesoara. 2/I am thinking 1/ about what the teacher is saying. 2/
Subject Clause (propoziție subordonată subiectivă):Ceea ce zice profesoara, 1/ e corect. 2/What the teacher is saying, 1/ is true. 2/
Local Circumstantial Object Clause (propoziție subordonată completivă circumstanțială de loc):Mă văd cu Ionuț 1/ unde (mi-)a propus el. 2/I am meeting Johnny 1/ where he proposed (to me). 2/
Clauses introduced by coordinating conjunctions
Some conjunctions are called coordinating because they do not define the type of clause introduced. Rather, they coordinate an existing clause with another, making the new clause of the same type as the other one. The coordinating conjunctions are of four types (note that the list is not exhaustive):
The copulative conjunctions are: și (and), nici (neither), and precum și (as well as).
The adversative conjunctions are: dar/însă/ci (but) and iar (on the other hand).
The disjunctive conjunctions are: sau/ori/fie (or/either).
The conclusive conjunctions are: deci/așadar (thus), în concluzie (in conclusion), and prin urmare (therefore).
An example of two main clauses (1, 2) linked together by a coordinative conjunction (bold) is:Ana este o fată 1/ și Ion este un băiat. 2/Ana is a girl, 1/ and Ion is a boy. 2/
Two subordinate clauses (2, 3) can also be joined to the same end:V-am spus despre băiatul 1/ care este la mine în clasă, 2/ și care este foarte bun la matematică. 3/I have told you about the boy 1/ who is in my class, 2/ and who is very good in mathematics. 3/
The same effect of two main clauses (1, 2) being tied together can also be achieved via juxtaposition of the sentences using a comma:Am păzit palatul, 1/ palatul era și foarte greu de păzit. 2/I guarded the palace, 1/ the palace was very hard to guard, too. 2/
References
Bibliography
Gabriela Pană Dindelegan, ed. The Grammar of Romanian. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin & Ion Giurgea, eds. A Reference Grammar of Romanian, vol. 1: The Noun Phrase''. John Benjamins, 2013.
External links
Very detailed Romanian grammar (PDF; 183 pages; 4.6 MB)
Romanian Grammar Workbook (1996) for Peace Corps Volunteers, Peace Corps (Moldova)
Verbix: Romanian verbs conjugation (Attention: Generally good output, but a few verbs are not conjugated correctly.)
Romanian <-> English online dictionary and Romanian verb conjugator (few mistakes)
Romanian online dictionary and lemmatizer
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Dorchester ( ) is the county town of Dorset, England. It is situated between Poole and Bridport on the A35 trunk route. A historic market town, Dorchester is on the banks of the River Frome to the south of the Dorset Downs and north of the South Dorset Ridgeway that separates the area from Weymouth, to the south. The civil parish includes the small town of Poundbury and the suburb of Fordington.
The area around the town was first settled in prehistoric times. The Romans established a garrison there after defeating the Durotriges tribe, calling the settlement that grew up nearby Durnovaria; they built an aqueduct to supply water and an amphitheatre on an ancient British earthwork. After the departure of the Romans, the town diminished in significance, but during the medieval period became an important commercial and political centre. It was the site of the "Bloody Assizes" presided over by Judge Jeffreys after the Monmouth Rebellion, and later the trial of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
In the 2011 census, the population of Dorchester was 19,060, with further people coming from surrounding areas to work in the town which has six industrial estates. The Brewery Square redevelopment project is taking place in phases, with other development projects planned. The town has a land-based college, Kingston Maurward College, The Thomas Hardye School, three middle schools and thirteen first schools. The Dorset County Hospital offers an accident and emergency service, and the town is served by two railway stations. Through vehicular traffic is routed round the town by means of a bypass. The town has a football club and a rugby union club, several museums and the biannual Dorchester Festival. It is twinned with three towns in Europe. As well as having many listed buildings, a number of notable people have been associated with the town. It was for many years the home and inspiration of the author Thomas Hardy, whose novel The Mayor of Casterbridge uses a fictionalised version of Dorchester as its setting.
History
Prehistory and Romano-British
Dorchester's roots stem back to prehistoric times. The earliest settlements were about southwest of the modern town centre in the vicinity of Maiden Castle, a large Iron Age hill fort that was one of the most powerful settlements in pre-Roman Britain. Different tribes lived there from 4000 BC. The Durotriges were likely to have been there when the Romans arrived in Britain in 43 AD.
The Romans defeated the local tribes by 70 AD and established a garrison that became the town the Romans named Durnovaria, a Brythonic name incorporating durn, "fist", loosely interpreted as 'place with fist-sized pebbles'. It appears to have taken part of its name from the local Durotriges tribe who inhabited the area.
Durnovaria was recorded in the 4th-century Antonine Itinerary and became a market centre for the surrounding countryside, an important road junction and staging post, and subsequently one of the twin capitals of the Celtic Durotriges tribe.
The remains of the Roman walls that surrounded the town can still be seen. The majority have been replaced by pathways that form a square inside modern Dorchester known as 'The Walks'. A small segment of the original wall remains near the Top 'o Town roundabout.
Other Roman remains include part of the town walls and the foundations of a town house near the county hall. Modern building works within the walls have unearthed Roman finds; in 1936 a cache of 22,000 3rd-century Roman coins was discovered in South Street.
Other Roman finds include silver and copper coins known as Dorn pennies, a gold ring, a bronze figure of the Roman god Mercury and large areas of tessellated pavement.
The County Museum contains many Roman artefacts. The Romans built an aqueduct to supply the town with water. It was rediscovered in 1900 as the remains of a channel cut into the chalk and contouring round the hills. The source is believed to be the River Frome at Notton, about upstream from Dorchester. Near the town centre is Maumbury Rings, an ancient British henge earthwork converted by the Romans for use as an amphitheatre, and to the north west is Poundbury Hill, another pre-Roman fortification.
Little evidence exists to suggest continued occupation after the withdrawal of the Roman administration from Britain. The name Durnovaria survived into Old Welsh as Durngueir, recorded by Asser in the 9th century.
The area remained in British hands until the mid-7th century and there was continuity of use of the Roman cemetery at nearby Poundbury. Dorchester has been suggested as the centre of a sub-kingdom of Dumnonia or other regional power base.
Medieval
One of the first raids of the Viking era may have taken place near Dorchester around 790. According to a chronicler, the King's reeve assembled a few men and sped to meet them thinking that they were merchants from another country. When he arrived at their location, he admonished them and instructed that they should be brought to the royal town. The Vikings then slaughtered him and his men.
By 864, the area around Durnovaria was dominated by the Saxons who referred to themselves as Dorsaetas, 'People of the Dor' – Durnovaria. The original local name would have been Dorn-gweir giving the Old English Dornwary. The town became known as Dornwaraceaster or Dornwaracester, combining the original name Dor/Dorn from the Latin and Celtic languages with cester, an Old English word for a Roman station. This name evolved over time to Dorncester/Dornceaster and Dorchester.
At the time of the Norman conquest, Dorchester was not a place of great significance; the Normans did build a castle but it has not survived. A priory was also founded, in 1364, though this also has since disappeared. In the later medieval period the town prospered; it became a thriving commercial and political centre for south Dorset, with a textile trading and manufacturing industry which continued until the 17th century. In the time of Edward III (1312–1377), the town was governed by bailiffs and burgesses, with the number of burgesses increasing to fifteen by the reign of James I (1566–1625).
Early modern
"The town is populous, tho' not large, the streets broad, but the buildings old, and low; however, there is good company and a good deal of it; and a man that coveted a retreat in this world might as agreeably spend his time, and as well in Dorchester, as in any town I know in England". – Daniel Defoe, in his A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain (1724–26).
In the 17th and 18th centuries Dorchester suffered several serious fires: in 1613, caused by a tallow chandler's cauldron getting too hot and setting alight; in 1622, started by a maltster; in 1725, begun in a brewhouse; and in 1775, caused by a soap boiler. The 1613 fire was the most devastating, resulting in the destruction of 300 houses and two churches (All Saints and Holy Trinity).
Only a few of the town's early buildings have survived to the present day, including Judge Jeffreys' lodgings and a Tudor almshouse. Among the replacement Georgian buildings are many, such as the Shire Hall, which are built in Portland stone. The municipal buildings, which incorporate the former corn exchange and the former town hall, were erected in 1848 on the site of an earlier town hall, which was built in 1791 and had a marketplace underneath.
In the 17th century the town was at the centre of Puritan emigration to America, and the local rector, John White, organised the settlement of Dorchester, Massachusetts. The first colonisation attempted was at Cape Ann, where fishermen who would rejoin the fishing fleet when the vessels returned the next year, tried to be self-sufficient. However, the land was unsuitable, the colony failed and was moved to what is now Salem. In 1628, the enterprise received a Royal Charter and the Massachusetts Bay Company was formed with three hundred colonists arriving in America that year and more the following year. For his efforts on behalf of Puritan dissenters, White has been called the unheralded founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (Some observers have attributed the oversight to the fact that White, unlike John Winthrop, never went to America.)
In 1642, just before the English Civil War, Hugh Green, a Catholic chaplain was executed here. After his execution, Puritans played football with his head. The town was heavily defended against the Royalists in the civil war and Dorset was known as "the southern capital of coat-turning", as the county gentry found it expedient to change allegiance and to swap the sides they supported on several occasions. In 1643, the town was attacked by 2,000 troops under Robert Dormer, 1st Earl of Carnarvon. Its defences proved inadequate and it quickly surrendered but was spared the plunder and punishment it might otherwise have received. It remained under Royalist control for some time, but was eventually recaptured by the Puritans.
In 1685 the Duke of Monmouth failed in his invasion attempt, the Monmouth Rebellion, and almost 300 of his men were condemned to death or transportation in the "Bloody Assizes" presided over by Judge Jeffreys in the Oak Room of the Antelope Hotel in Dorchester.
Modern
In 1833, the Tolpuddle Martyrs founded the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. Trade unions were legal but because the members swore an oath of allegiance, they were arrested and tried in the Shire Hall. Beneath the courtroom are cells where the prisoners were held while awaiting trial. Dorchester Prison was constructed in the town during the 19th century and was used for holding convicted and remanded inmates from the local courts until it closed in December 2013. Plans have since been made to erect 189 dwellings and a museum on the site.
Dorchester remained a compact town within the boundaries of the old town walls until the latter part of the 19th century because all land immediately adjacent to the west, south and east was owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The land composed the Manor of Fordington. The developments that had encroached onto it were Marabout Barracks, to the north of Bridport Road, in 1794, Dorchester Union Workhouse, to the north of Damer's Road, in 1835, the Southampton and Dorchester Railway and its station east of Weymouth Avenue, in 1847, the Great Western Railway and its station to the south of Damer's Road, in 1857, the waterworks, to the north of Bridport Road, in 1854, a cemetery, to the west of the new railway and east of Weymouth Avenue, in 1856, and a Dorset County Constabulary police station in 1860, west of the Southampton railway, east of Weymouth Avenue and north of Maumbury Rings.
The Duchy land was farmed under the open field system until 1874 when it was enclosed – or consolidated – into three large farms by the landowners and residents. The enclosures were followed by a series of key developments for the town: the enclosing of Poundbury hillfort for public enjoyment in 1876, the 'Fair Field' (new site for the market, off Weymouth Avenue) in 1877, the Recreation Ground (also off Weymouth Avenue) opening in 1880, and the Eldridge Pope Brewery of 1881, adjacent to the railway line to Southampton. Salisbury Field was retained for public use in 1892 and land was purchased in 1895 for the formal Borough Gardens, between West Walks and Cornwall Road. The clock and bandstand were added in 1898.
A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of the Depot Barracks in 1881. The High West Street drill hall was created, by converting a private house, around the same time.
Land was developed for housing outside the walls including the Cornwall Estate, between the Borough Gardens and the Great Western Railway from 1876 and the Prince of Wales Estate from 1880. Land for the Victoria Park Estate was bought in 1896 and building began in 1897, Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. The lime trees in Queen's Avenue were planted in February 1897.
Poundbury is the western extension of the town, constructed since 1993 according to urban village principles on Duchy of Cornwall land owned by Prince Charles. Being developed over 25 years in four phases, it will eventually have 2,500 dwellings and a population of about 6,000. Prince Charles was involved with the development's design.
Dorchester became Dorset's first Official Transition Initiative in 2008 as part of the Transition Towns concept. Transition Town Dorchester is a community response to the challenges and opportunities of peak oil and climate change.
Government
From 1295 to 1868, Dorchester was a parliamentary constituency. This was abolished by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, after which Dorchester was placed in the new Dorset South constituency and in 1918 it was transferred to Dorset West, where it has remained ever since. Dorchester is represented by two tiers of government. Dorchester Town Council and Dorset Council, both of which are based within the town. The Member of Parliament (MP) for West Dorset was Oliver Letwin from 1997 to 2019. Since the 2019 general election, the local MP has been Conservative Chris Loder.
The town's coat of arms depicts the old castle that used to stand on the site of the former prison. The royal purple background represents Dorchester's status as part of the monarch's private estate, a position held since before the Domesday Book was published. The shield is divided into quarters, two depicting lions and two fleur-de-lis. These are copied from the shields of the troops from Dorset who took part in the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The fleur-de-lis have a scattered arrangement which shows that permission for the armorial bearings was given before 1405, after which date the rights were varied by King Henry VI. The inscription 'Sigillum Bailivorum Dorcestre' translates as 'Seal of the Bailiffs of Dorchester'. The mayor has a similar seal of office, but this has the inscription Dorcestriensis Sig: Maioris.
There are four electoral wards in Dorchester (North, South, East and West) showing a combined population of 19,060. The town has been growing steadily with 11,620 residents in 1951, 13,740 in 1971 and 15,100 in 1991.
On 15 December 2004, Dorchester was the first town in Dorset to be granted Fairtrade status.
In 2011, Dorchester was one of more than 20 towns across the country to apply for city status to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, although in March 2012 it was revealed that Dorchester's bid had been unsuccessful.
Geography
Dorchester town centre is sited about above sea-level on gently sloping ground beside the south bank of the River Frome. Measured directly, it is about north of Weymouth, SSE of Yeovil in Somerset, and west of Poole. The town's built-up area extends south, west and southeast of the town centre; to the north and northeast growth is restricted by the floodplain and watermeadows of the river.
The land immediately south and west of the town is part of the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is traversed by the South Dorset Ridgeway, part of the South West Coast Path. There are over five hundred ancient monuments along the chalk hills that form the ridgeway, including barrows, stone circles and hillforts; many archaeological finds from the area are on view at the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester.
The geology of the town comprises bedrock formed in the Coniacian, Santonian and Campanian ages of the Late Cretaceous epoch, overlain in places by more recent Quaternary drift deposits. The bedrock is chalk of various formations. The drift deposits comprise a cap of clay-with-flints on the western edge of the town around Poundbury, alluvium in the river's floodplain, and several narrow ribbons of poorly stratified head deposits, found particularly around the town's northeastern and southwestern boundaries but also elsewhere.
Economy
In 2012 there were 17,500 people working in Dorchester, 51% of whom were working full-time. 57% of jobs were in public administration, education and health, 18% were in professional and market services (including finance and ICT), 17% were in distribution, accommodation and food, 4% were in production and 2% in construction. The unemployment rate in July 2014 was 0.9% of residents aged 16–64.
Dorchester has six industrial estates: The Grove Trading Estate (7.1 ha or 18 acres), Poundbury Trading Estate (5 ha or 12 acres), Marabout Barracks (2 ha or 4.9 acres), Great Western Centre (1.4 ha or 3.5 acres), Railway Triangle (1.4 ha or 3.5 acres) and Casterbridge Industrial Estate (1.1 ha or 2.7 acres). The estates mostly house light industrial units, wholesalers and the service sector. Significant employers for residents in the town include AEA Technology, BAeSEMA Ltd, Dorset County Council, Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Goulds Ltd, Henry Ling Ltd, Kingston Maurward College, Tesco, and Winterbourne Hospital.
In 2008 the Dorchester BID, a business improvement district, was set up to promote the town and improve the trading environment for town centre businesses. Local traders were overwhelmingly in favour of the decision, with 84% voting in favour at the February 2008 ballot. The BID is funded by a levy on the businesses in the town. The BID lasts initially for five years, and between 2013 and 2018 the projects being undertaken include business support, security projects, town promotion, the provision of green spaces and making the town more visually attractive. In June 2018 the Dorchester BID was successful in being voted in for a second term.
The catchment population for major food retail outlets in Dorchester is 38,500 (2001 estimate) and extends eight miles west, north and east of the town, and two miles south. The Brewery Square redevelopment project now includes retail outlets, residential units, bars, restaurants, hotel and cultural facilities. The regeneration of Dorchester South railway station will make it the UK's first solar powered railway station. The Charles Street development has had a first phase completed that includes a library and adult education centre for Dorset County Council, and offices for Dorset Council. Future phases are planned to include 23 shops, an underground car park, hotel and affordable housing. The second phase has attracted funding of £4 million from the former West Dorset District Council and includes new Marks & Spencer and Waitrose stores.
Demography
In the 2011 census Dorchester civil parish had 8,996 dwellings, 8,449 households and a population of 19,060, with 48.35% of residents being male and 51.65% being female. 17% of residents were under the age of 16 (compared to 18.9% for England as a whole), and 22.4% of residents were age 65 or older (compared to 16.4% for England as a whole).
Culture
Writers
Novelist and poet Thomas Hardy based the fictional town of Casterbridge on Dorchester, and his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge is set there. Hardy's childhood home is to the east of the town, and his town house, Max Gate, is owned by the National Trust and open to the public. Hardy is buried in Westminster Abbey, but his heart was removed and buried in Stinsford.
William Barnes, the West Country dialect poet, was Rector of Winterborne Came, a hamlet near Dorchester, for 24 years until his death in 1886, and ran a school in the town. There is a statue of Hardy and one of Barnes in the town centre; Barnes outside St. Peter's Church, and Hardy's beside the Top o' Town crossroads.
John Cowper Powys's novel Maiden Castle (1936) is set in Dorchester and Powys intended it to be "a Rival of the Mayor of Casterbridge. Powys had lived in Dorchester as a child, between May 1880 and Christmas 1885, when his father was a curate there. Then, after returning from America in June 1934, he had lived at 38 High East Street, Dorchester, from October 1934 until July 1935, when he moved to Wales. The building is commemorated with a plaque erected by the Dorchester Heritage Committee, but giving the date of his residence as 1936.
Performing arts and museums
Dorchester Arts, based in a former school building, runs a seasonal programme of music, dance and theatre events, participatory arts projects for socially excluded groups and the biannual Dorchester Festival. Dorchester Arts is an Arts Council 'National Portfolio organisation'. Dorchester Arts has been resident at the corn exchange since 2015.
Dorchester museums include the Roman Town House, the Dinosaur Museum, the Terracotta Warriors Museum, the Dorset Teddy Bear Museum, the Keep Military Museum, Dorset County Museum. and the Tutankhamun Exhibition. All of these museums took part in the "Museums at Night" event in May 2011 in which museums across the UK opened after hours. The Shire Hall which contains the court where the Tolpuddle Martyrs were held and tried opened as a museum in 2018. The Durnovaria Silver Band is based in Fordington Methodist Church Hall.
Notable buildings
Within Dorchester parish there are 293 structures that are listed by Historic England for their historic or architectural interest, including five that are listed Grade I and sixteen that are Grade II*. The Grade I structures are the Church of St George on Fordington High Street, the Church of St Peter on High West Street, Max Gate on Syward Road, the Roman town house on Northernhay, and Shire Hall on High West Street.
The Church of St George has a late-11th-century south door that has a Caen stone tympanum with a realistic carved representation of St George surrounded by soldiers, said to depict the miracle of his appearance at the Battle of Antioch. The south aisle and the north part of the porch date from the 12th century. The Church of St Peter mostly dates from 1420–21, with a 12th-century south doorway reset into it. There are many notable monuments, including two 14th-century effigies and a 14th-century tomb chest. Thomas Hardy contributed to the addition of the vestry and chancel in 1856-7.
Max Gate was designed by Thomas Hardy in the Queen Anne style, and was his home until his death in 1928. It was built in 1885. The remains of the Roman house north of county hall date from the early 4th century, with later 4th-century enlargements. It has a hypocaust heating system and mosaic pavements. It is the only visible Roman town house in Britain. The current Shire Hall building was designed by Thomas Hardwick and built in Portland stone ashlar in 1797. It replaced a previous structure that had fallen into disrepair.
A tablet commemorates the sentencing of the Tolpuddle Martyrs here in 1834. The building housed the Crown Court until 1955; Thomas Hardy was a magistrate here and his experience provided inspiration for his writing. The building has changed little since the 19th century, and in 2014 planning permission was granted to transform it into a heritage centre and tourist attraction, to open in 2017.
Education and healthcare
Dorchester has thirteen first schools, three middle schools:St Osmund's Church of England Middle School, St Mary's Church of England Middle School, Puddletown and Dorchester Middle School and an upper school; The Thomas Hardye School which was founded in 1569 and endowed by Thomas Hardye, a merchant in 1579. It was expanded and reopened in 1888. In 2011 had 2,283 pupils on the roll. The author Thomas Hardy, a distant relative, was a school governor here from 1909 until shortly before his death. The nineteen schools in the Dorchester area form the Dorchester Area Schools Partnership (DASP). There is also a private school, Sunninghill Prep School,
Kingston Maurward College is a land-based studies college on the outskirts of the town. It offers full-time and part-time courses, apprenticeships and university-level courses in a wide range of subjects including agriculture, horticulture, conservation, construction, countryside and wildlife management.
The town's hospital is Dorset County Hospital on Williams Avenue. It offers a twenty-four-hour accident and emergency treatment with services being provided by Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
Sport and leisure
Dorchester Town F.C., the town's football team currently play in the Southern League Premier Division. Harry Redknapp and former England players Graham Roberts and Martin Chivers represented 'The Magpies' in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The club is based on Weymouth Avenue in the south of the town after moving from its old ground also on Weymouth Avenue. The club moved to the purpose-built 5,000 capacity Avenue Stadium on Duchy of Cornwall land in the early 1990s.
Dorchester RFC is an amateur rugby union team who currently play in the Dorset & Wilts South 1 League. Dorchester Cricket Club play in the Dorset Premier League, being last crowned champions in 2009.
A leisure centre and swimming pool on Coburg Road replaced the Thomas Hardye School Leisure Centre in 2012, at a cost of more than £8 million.
In May 2009, a skatepark was opened at the junction of Maumbury Road and Weymouth Avenue in Dorchester after 12 years of planning and construction.
Transportation
The town has two railway stations: Dorchester South is on the South West Main Line to Bournemouth, Southampton and London Waterloo, and is operated by South Western Railway. Dorchester West, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, is on the Heart of Wessex Line, operated by Great Western Railway and connects with Yeovil, Bath, Bristol and Gloucester. As part of the regeneration at the Brewery Site in the town centre, Dorchester South railway station will become the first solar powered railway station in the UK.
Mowlem completed a bypass road to the south and west of the town in 1988, diverting through traffic using the A35 and A37 roads away from the town centre. Dorchester is approximately 43 miles (69 km) south east of junction 25 of the M5 motorway at Taunton.
Buses are operated by First Hampshire & Dorset, Damory Coaches and South West Coaches. National Express and Megabus also serve the town.
Media
Dorchester was served by two local radio stations: Wessex FM, and BBC Radio Solent. However Wessex FM closed down in August 2020 and was relaunched as Greatest Hits Radio which broadcasts older music across a wider catchment area.
Dorset County Hospital has its own station named 'Ridgeway Radio' which has been on the air for fifty years. Local television news coverage is by BBC South Today in Southampton, ITV Meridian in Whiteley, BBC Spotlight in Plymouth and ITV West Country in Bristol. Dorchester's regular print media comprises the Dorset Echo.
Many homes in Dorchester have access to fibre broadband services provided by private companies. The town is part of the second phase of Superfast Dorset, a project to increase fibre broadband availability within the county, which has been completed.
Notable people
Frances Bagenal, (born 1954), Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, at the University of Colorado Boulder
Paul Blake (born 1990), paralympian athlete
James Campbell (born 1988), cricketer, was born in the town.
Aaron Cook (born 1991), a taekwondo athlete who competed in the 2008 Olympic Games finishing in fifth place, was born and educated in Dorchester.
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), novelist and poet, architecturally trained and settled in the town where he died at his home, Max Gate.
Paul Hillier (born 1949), classical singer and composer, was born in Dorchester. He attended the Thomas Hardye School.
Henry Moule (1801–1880), vicar of Fordington from 1829 and inventor of the dry earth closet.
Llewelyn Powys (1884–1939), novelist and essayist, was born in Dorchester.
Henry Pyrgos (born 1989), Scottish International rugby player, was born in the town.
Tom Roberts (1856–1931), Australian painter, was born in Dorchester.
Sir Frederick Treves (1853–1923), surgeon to King Edward VII, born in the town and buried at St Peter's Church.
Orlando Bailey, Rugby Union Fly Half for Bath Rugby was born in the town and attended Thomas Hardye School.
Twinned towns
Dorchester is twinned with three European towns:
Bayeux in France since 1959, because the Dorset Regiment were the first soldiers to enter the town in 1944 as the Second World War came to an end.
Lübbecke in Germany since 1973, initiated when the Durnovaria Silver Band met the Lübbecker Schützenmusik Corps in Bayeux in 1968, when that town was in the process of twinning with Lübbecke.
Holbæk in Denmark since 1992, resulting from a shared interest in community drama. Actors from each town have appeared in plays in the other community.
The town's schools are twinned with schools in Europe, Africa and Asia. The Thomas Hardye School has partnerships with schools in Tanzania, Dehradun and Bayeux.
Freedom of the Town
The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Town of Dorchester.
Individuals
Thomas Hardy : 15 November 1910.
Sir Frederick Treves:July 1902.
References
Bibliography
Bingham, A. (1987) Dorset : Ordnance Survey landranger guidebook , Norwich: Jarrold,
Chandler, J. H. (1990) Wessex images, Gloucester: Alan Sutton and Wiltshire County Council Library & Museum Service,
Draper, J. (1992) Dorchester : An illustrated history Wimborne: Dovecote Press,
Morris, J. and Draper, J. (1995) "The 'Enclosure' of Fordington Fields and the Development of Dorchester, 1874–1903", Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society proceedings, v. 117, p. 5–14,
Pitt-Rivers, M. (1966) Dorset, A Shell guide, New ed., London: Faber,
Taylor, C. (1970) Dorset, Making of the English landscape, London: Hodder & Stoughton, p. 197–201,
Waymark, J, (1997) "The Duchy of Cornwall and the Expansion of Dorchester, c. 1900–1997", Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society proceedings, v. 119, p. 19–32,
External links
West Dorset District Council
Market towns in Dorset
County towns in England
70s establishments in the Roman Empire
Towns in Dorset
1st-century establishments in Roman Britain
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Hadrian's Wall (), also known as the Roman Wall, Picts' Wall, or Vallum Hadriani in Latin, is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the emperor Hadrian. Running "from Wallsend on the River Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west", the Wall covered the whole width of the island. In addition to the wall's defensive military role, its gates may have been customs posts.
A significant portion of the wall still stands and can be followed on foot along the adjoining Hadrian's Wall Path. The largest Roman archaeological feature in Britain, it runs a total of in northern England. Regarded as a British cultural icon, Hadrian's Wall is one of Britain's major ancient tourist attractions. It was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. In comparison, the Antonine Wall, thought by some to be based on Hadrian's wall, was not declared a World Heritage site until 2008.
Hadrian's Wall marked the boundary between Roman Britannia and unconquered Caledonia to the north. The wall lies entirely within England and has never formed the Anglo-Scottish border.
Dimensions
The length of the Wall was 80 Roman miles (a unit of length equivalent to about 1,620 yards or 1,480 metres), or 73 modern miles. This covered the entire width of the island, from Wallsend on the River Tyne in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west.
Not long after construction began on the Wall, its width was reduced from the originally planned ten feet to about eight feet, or even less depending on the terrain. As some areas were constructed of turf and timber, it would take decades for certain areas to be modified and replaced by stone.
Bede, a medieval historian, wrote the Wall to be standing at 12 feet (4 metres) high, with evidence suggesting it could have been a few feet higher at its formation.
Route
Hadrian's Wall extended west from Segedunum at Wallsend on the River Tyne, via Carlisle and Kirkandrews-on-Eden, to the shore of the Solway Firth, ending a short but unknown distance west of the village of Bowness-on-Solway. The A69 and B6318 roads follow the course of the wall from Newcastle upon Tyne to Carlisle, then along the northern coast of Cumbria (south shore of the Solway Firth). The route was slightly north of Stanegate, an important Roman road built several decades earlier to link two forts that guarded important river crossings: Corstopitum (Corbridge) on the River Tyne and Luguvalium (Carlisle) on the River Eden.
Although the curtain wall ends near Bowness-on-Solway, this does not mark the end of the line of defensive structures. The system of milecastles and turrets is known to have continued along the Cumbria coast as far as Risehow, south of Maryport. For classification purposes, the milecastles west of Bowness-on-Solway are referred to as Milefortlets.
Purpose of construction
On Hadrian's accession to the imperial throne in 117, there was unrest and rebellion in Roman Britain and from the peoples of various conquered lands across the Empire, including Egypt, Judea, Libya and Mauretania. These troubles may have influenced his plan to construct the Wall, as well as his construction of frontier boundaries now known as limes in other areas of the Empire, such as the Limes Germanicus in modern-day Germany. In any case, Hadrian ended his predecessor Trajan's policy of expanding the empire and instead focused on defending the current borders.
The Historia Augusta states that Hadrian was the first to build a wall 80 miles from sea to sea to separate the barbarians from the Romans. However, this reasoning may not entirely explain all the various motivations Hadrian could have had in mind when commissioning the wall's construction.
Scholars disagree over how much of a threat the inhabitants of northern Britain really presented to the Romans, and whether there was any economic advantage in defending and garrisoning a fixed line of defences like the Wall, rather than conquering and annexing what has become Northumberland and the Scottish Lowlands and then defending the territory with a looser arrangement of forts.
According to restored sandstone fragments found in Jarrow which date from 118 or 119, it was Hadrian's wish to keep "intact the empire", which had been imposed on him via "divine instruction".
Besides a defensive structure made to keep people out, the Wall also served to keep people within the Roman province. Since the Romans had control over who was allowed in and out of the empire, the Wall was invaluable in controlling trading and the economy. Another factor to bear in mind is the psychological impact of the Wall:For nearly three centuries, until the end of Roman rule in Britain in 410 AD, Hadrian's Wall was the clearest statement of the might, resourcefulness, and determination of an individual emperor and of his empire.
Recent thought is that the Wall's primary purpose was as a physical barrier to slow up the crossing of raiders and people intent on getting into the empire for destructive or plundering purposes. It may be that the Wall was not a last-stand type of defensive line, but instead an observation point that could alert Romans of an incoming attack and act as a deterrent to slow down enemy forces so that additional troops could arrive for support. This view is supported by another defensive measure frequently found on the berm or flat area in front of the Wall: pits or holes known as cippi pits which held branches or small tree trunks entangled with sharpened branches (these were the 'cippi'). The use of such thorns and sharpened stakes was clearly an anti-personnel measure, and might be thought of as the Roman equivalent of barbed wire.
Construction
Hadrian's Wall was probably planned before Hadrian's visit to Britain in 122. Although Hadrian believed in exploiting natural boundaries such as rivers for the borders of the empire, for example the Euphrates, Rhine and Danube, Britain did not have any natural boundaries that could serve to divide the province controlled by the Romans from the rebellious Celtic tribes in the north, hence a wall was needed.
With construction starting in 122, the wall incorporated 16 forts, each housing as many as 600 men, and spaced at 5½ to 9½ miles intervals. Between these were placed a total of 80 manned stone milecastles, operated by "between 12 and 20 men". The milecastles were spaced at about one Roman mile and each guarded a gateway through the Wall with a corresponding causeway across the ditches to the north and south. Between the milecastles were placed stone watchtowers about every third of a mile..
It took six years to build most of Hadrian's Wall at the hands of three Roman legions – the Legio II Augusta, Legio VI Victrix, and Legio XX Valeria Victrix, totalling 15,000 soldiers, plus some members of the Roman fleet. The production of the Wall was not out of the area of expertise for the soldiers, as some would have trained to be surveyors, engineers, masons, and carpenters.
Once its construction was finished, there is some evidence that Hadrian's Wall was covered in plaster and then whitewashed: its shining surface would have reflected the sunlight and been visible for miles around.
"Broad Wall" and "Narrow Wall"
R.G. Collingwood cited evidence for the existence of a broad section of the Wall and conversely a narrow section. He argued that plans changed during construction of the Wall and its overall width was reduced.
Broad sections of the Wall are around nine and a half feet (2.9 metres) wide with the narrow sections of the Wall two feet (60 centimetres) thinner, being around seven and a half feet (2.3 metres) wide. The narrow sections were found to be built upon broad foundations. Based on this evidence, Collingwood concluded that the Wall was originally due to be built between present-day Newcastle and Bowness, with a uniform width of ten Roman feet, all in stone. However, in the end, only three-fifths of the Wall was built from stone and the remaining part of the Wall in the west was a turf wall, though it was later rebuilt in stone. Plans possibly changed due to a lack of resources.
In an effort to preserve resources further, the eastern half's width was therefore reduced from the original ten Roman feet to eight, with the remaining stones from the eastern half used for around five miles (8 kilometres) of the turf wall in the west. This reduction from the original ten Roman feet to eight, created the so-called "Narrow Wall".
The Vallum
Just south of the Wall there is a ten-foot (3 metres) deep, ditch-like construction with two parallel mounds running north and south of it, known as the Vallum. The Vallum and the Wall run more or less in parallel for almost the entire length of the wall, except between the forts of Newcastle and Wallsend at the east end of the Wall, where the Vallum may have been considered superfluous on account of the close proximity of the River Tyne, at the north bank of which the Wall ended (or began).
From 1936, research showed that the Vallum was built shortly after the Wall because the Vallum clearly avoided one of the Wall's milecastles. This new discovery was continually supported by more evidence, strengthening the idea that there was a simultaneous construction of the Vallum and the Wall.
Other evidence still pointed in other, slightly different directions. Evidence shows that the Vallum preceded sections of the Narrow Wall specifically; to account for this discrepancy, Couse suggests that either construction of the Vallum began with the Broad Wall, or it began when the Narrow Wall succeeded the Broad Wall but proceeded more quickly than that of the Narrow Wall.
The vallum was crossed by causeways only at the forts and strangely seems to have been designed as a barrier to the south. Traffic would have to cross these causeways and then travel along the military road to one of the milecastles to cross the Wall, as farm animals would not have been allowed through the forts. However, modern archaeological opinion is that the Vallum established the southern boundary of an exclusion zone bounded on the north by the wall itself and would have been "out-of-bounds" to civilians. It might thus have been the Roman equivalent to a modern demilitarized zone.
The Vallum limited the routes through the Wall from 78 to about 15 and may therefore have been constructed in response to a threat from the south.
Turf wall
From Milecastle 49 to the western terminus of the wall at Bowness-on-Solway, the curtain wall was originally constructed from turf, possibly due to the absence of limestone for the manufacture of mortar. Subsequently, the Turf Wall was demolished and replaced with a stone wall. This took place in two phases; the first (from the River Irthing to a point west of Milecastle 54), during the reign of Hadrian, and the second following the reoccupation of Hadrian's Wall subsequent to the abandonment of the Antonine Wall (though it has also been suggested that this second phase took place during the reign of Septimius Severus). The line of the new stone wall follows the line of the turf wall, apart from the stretch between Milecastle 49 and Milecastle 51, where the line of the stone wall is slightly further to the north.
In the stretch around Milecastle 50TW, it was built on a flat base with three to four courses of turf blocks. A basal layer of cobbles was used westwards from Milecastle 72 (at Burgh-by-Sands) and possibly at Milecastle 53. Where the underlying ground was boggy, wooden piles were used.
At its base, the now-demolished turf wall was wide, and built in courses of turf blocks measuring long by deep by high, to a height estimated at around . The north face is thought to have had a slope of 75%, whereas the south face is thought to have started vertical above the foundation, quickly becoming much shallower.
Standards
Above the stone curtain wall's foundations, one or more footing courses were laid. Offsets were introduced above these footing courses (on both the north and south faces), which reduced the wall's width. Where the width of the curtain wall is stated, it is in reference to the width above the offset. Two standards of offset have been identified: Standard A, where the offset occurs above the first footing course, and Standard B, where the offset occurs after the third (or sometimes fourth) footing course.
Garrison
It is thought that following construction, and when fully manned, almost 10,000 soldiers were stationed on Hadrian's Wall, made up not of the legions who built it but by regiments of auxiliary infantry and cavalry drawn from the provinces.
Following from this, David Breeze laid out the two basic functions for soldiers on or around Hadrian's Wall. Breeze says that soldiers who were stationed in the forts around the Wall had the primary duty of defence; at the same time, the troops in the milecastles and turrets had the responsibility of frontier control. Evidence, as Breeze says, for soldiers stationed in forts is far more pronounced than the ones in the milecastles and turrets.
Breeze discusses three theories about the soldiers on Hadrian's Wall. One, these soldiers who manned the milecastles and turrets on the Wall came from the forts near the Wall; two, regiments from auxiliaries were specifically chosen for this role; or three, "a special force" was formed to man these stations.
Breeze comes to the conclusion that through all the inscriptions gathered there were soldiers from three, or even four, auxiliary units at milecastles on the Wall. These units were "cohors I Batavorum, cohors I Vardullorum, an un-numbered Pannonian cohort, and a duplicarius from Upper Germany". Breeze adds that there appears to have been some legionaries as well at these milecastles.
Breeze also continues saying that evidence is "still open on whether" soldiers who manned the Wall milecastles were from nearby forts or were specifically chosen for this task, and further adds that "the balance [of evidence] perhaps lies towards the latter". And finally, a surprise for Breeze is that "soldiers from the three British legions" outnumbered the auxiliaries, which goes against the assertion "that legionaries would not be used on such detached duties".
Further information on the garrisoning of the wall has been provided by the discovery of the Vindolanda tablets just to the south of Hadrian's Wall, such as the record of an inspection on 18 May of year 92 or 97, where only 456 of the full quota of 756 Belgae troops were present, the rest being sick or otherwise absent.
After Hadrian
In the years after Hadrian's death in 138, the new emperor, Antoninus Pius, put the wall into a support role, essentially abandoning it. He began building a new wall called the Antonine Wall about north, across the isthmus running west-south-west to east-north-east. This turf wall ran 40 Roman miles, or about , and had significantly more forts than Hadrian's Wall. This area later became known as the Scottish Lowlands, sometimes referred to as the Central Belt or Central Lowlands.
Antoninus was unable to conquer the northern tribes, so when Marcus Aurelius became emperor, he abandoned the Antonine Wall and reoccupied Hadrian's Wall as the main defensive barrier in 164. In 208–211, the Emperor Septimius Severus again tried to conquer Caledonia and temporarily reoccupied the Antonine Wall. The campaign ended inconclusively and the Romans eventually withdrew to Hadrian's Wall.
The Dux Britanniarum was appointed by 314 in Diocletian's reforms as commander of the troops of the Northern Region, primarily along Hadrian's Wall, with responsibilities for protection of the frontier. He had significant autonomy due in part to the distance from his superiors.
In the late 4th century, barbarian invasions, economic decline and military coups loosened the Empire's hold on Britain. By 410, the estimated end of Roman rule in Britain, the Roman administration and its legions were gone and Britain was left to look to its own defences and government. Archaeologists have revealed that some parts of the wall remained occupied well into the 5th century. It has been suggested that some forts continued to be garrisoned by local Britons under the control of a Coel Hen figure and former dux.
Hadrian's Wall fell into ruin and over the centuries the stone was reused in other local buildings. Enough survived in the 7th century for spolia from Hadrian's Wall (illustrated at right) to find its way into the construction of St Paul's Church in Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Abbey, where the early historian Bede (AD 672/3-735) was a monk. He wrote (circa AD 730), following Gildas:
Bede obviously identified Gildas's stone wall as Hadrian's Wall (actually built in the 120s) and he would appear to have believed that the ditch-and-mound barrier known as the Vallum (just to the south of and contemporary with, Hadrian's Wall) was the rampart constructed by Severus. Many centuries would pass before just who built what became apparent.
In the same passage, Bede describes Hadrian's Wall as follows: "It is eight feet in breadth, and twelve in height; and, as can be clearly seen to this day, ran straight from east to west." Bede by his own account lived his whole life at Jarrow, just across the River Tyne from the eastern end of the Wall at Wallsend, so as he indicates, he would have been very familiar with the Wall.
The wall fascinated John Speed, who published a set of maps of England and Wales by county at the start of the 17th century. He described it as "the Picts Wall" (or "Pictes"; he uses both spellings). A map of Newecastle (sic), drawn in 1610 by William Matthew, described it as "Severus' Wall", mistakenly giving it the name ascribed by Bede to the Vallum. The maps for Cumberland and Northumberland not only show the wall as a major feature, but are ornamented with drawings of Roman finds, together with, in the case of the Cumberland map, a cartouche in which he sets out a description of the wall itself.
Preservation by John Clayton
Much of the wall has now disappeared. Long sections of it were used for roadbuilding in the 18th century, especially by General Wade to build a military road (most of which lies beneath the present day B6318 "Military Road") to move troops to crush the Jacobite rising of 1745. The preservation of much of what remains can be credited to the antiquarian John Clayton. He trained as a lawyer and became town clerk of Newcastle in the 1830s. He became enthusiastic about preserving the wall after a visit to Chesters. To prevent farmers taking stones from the wall, he began buying some of the land on which the wall stood. In 1834, he started purchasing property around Steel Rigg near Crag Lough. Eventually, he controlled land from Brunton to Cawfields. This stretch included the sites of Chesters, Carrawburgh, Housesteads, and Vindolanda. Clayton carried out excavation at the fort at Cilurnum and at Housesteads, and he excavated some milecastles.
Clayton managed the farms he had acquired and succeeded in improving both the land and the livestock. He used the profits from his farms for restoration work. Workmen were employed to restore sections of the wall, generally up to a height of seven courses. The best example of the Clayton Wall is at Housesteads. After Clayton's death, the estate passed to relatives and was soon lost to gambling. Eventually, the National Trust began acquiring the land on which the wall stands. At Wallington Hall, near Morpeth, there is a painting by William Bell Scott, which shows a centurion supervising the building of the wall. The centurion has been given the face of John Clayton (above right).
Later discoveries
In 2021 workers for Northumbrian Water found a previously undiscovered section of the wall while repairing a water main in central Newcastle upon Tyne. The company announced that the pipe would be " angled to leave a buffer around the excavated trench".
World Heritage Site
Hadrian's Wall was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and in 2005 it became part of the transnational "Frontiers of the Roman Empire" World Heritage Site, which also includes sites in Germany.
Tourism
Although Hadrian's Wall was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, it remains unguarded, enabling visitors to climb and stand on the wall, although this is not encouraged, as it could damage the historic structure. On 13 March 2010, a public event Illuminating Hadrian's Wall took place, which saw the route of the wall lit with 500 beacons. On 31 August and 2 September 2012, there was a second illumination of the wall as a digital art installation called "Connecting Light", which was part of the London 2012 Festival. In 2018, the organisations which manage the Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall signed an agreement to collaborate for the growth of tourism and for historical and cultural understanding of the monuments.
Hadrian's Wall Path
In 2003, a National Trail footpath was opened that follows the line of the wall from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway. Because of the fragile landscape, walkers are asked to follow the path only in summer.
Roman-period names
Hadrian's Wall was known in the Roman period as the vallum (wall) as evidenced by the discovery of the Staffordshire Moorlands Pan in Staffordshire in 2003. This copper alloy pan (trulla), dating to the 2nd century, is inscribed with a series of names of Roman forts along the western sector of the wall: [Bowness-on-Solway] [Drumburgh] [Stanwix] [Castlesteads]. This is followed by . Hadrian's family name was Aelius, and the most likely reading of the inscription is Valli Aelii (genitive), Hadrian's Wall, suggesting that the wall was called by the same name by contemporaries. However, another possibility is that it refers to the personal name Aelius Draco.
Forts
The Latin and Romano-Celtic names of all of the Hadrian's Wall forts are known, from the Notitia Dignitatum and other evidence such as inscriptions:
Segedunum (Wallsend)
Pons Aelius (Newcastle upon Tyne)
Condercum (Benwell Hill)
Vindobala (Rudchester)
Hunnum (Halton Chesters)
Cilurnum (Chesters aka Walwick Chesters)
Procolita (Carrowburgh)
Vercovicium (Housesteads)
Aesica (Great Chesters)
Magnis (Carvoran)
Banna (Birdoswald)
Camboglanna (Castlesteads)
Uxelodunum (Stanwix. Also known as Petriana)
Aballava (Burgh-by-Sands)
Coggabata (Drumburgh)
Mais (Bowness-on-Solway)
Turrets on the wall include:
Leahill Turret
Denton Hall Turret
Outpost forts beyond the wall include:
Habitancum (Risingham)
Bremenium (High Rochester)
Fanum Cocidi (Bewcastle) (north of Birdoswald)
Ad Fines (Chew Green)
Supply forts behind the wall include:
Alauna (Maryport)
Arbeia (South Shields)
Coria (Corbridge)
Epiacum (Whitley Castle near Alston)
Vindolanda (Little Chesters or Chesterholm)
Vindomora (Ebchester)
In popular culture
Books
Jim Shepard short story collection "Like You'd Understand Anyway" (2007) includes a story titled "Hadrian's Wall" which is an imagined account of a clerk living and working during the Wall's construction.
Nobel Prize-winning English author Rudyard Kipling contributed to the popular image of the "Great Pict Wall" in his short stories about Parnesius, a Roman legionary who defended the Wall against the Picts. These stories are a part of the Puck of Pook's Hill anthology, published in 1906.
American author George R. R. Martin has acknowledged that Hadrian's Wall was the inspiration for The Wall in his best-selling series A Song of Ice and Fire, dramatised in the fantasy TV series Game of Thrones, in which the Wall is also in the north of its country and stretches from coast to coast.
In M J Trow's fictional Britannia series, Hadrian's Wall is the central location, and Coel Hen and Padarn Beisrudd are portrayed as limitanei (frontier soldiers).
Hadrian's Wall by Adrian Goldsworthy is a short history of the wall.
Films
The 1991 American romantic action adventure film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves uses Sycamore Gap as a location.
The 2011 action drama film The Eagle tells the story of a young Roman officer setting out across Hadrian's Wall into the uncharted highlands of Caledonia to recover the lost Roman eagle standard of the Ninth legion.
The wall has also been featured as a major focal point of the 2004 King Arthur in which one of the primary gates is opened for the first time since the wall's construction to allow Arthur and his knights passage into the north for their quest. The climactic Battle of Badon between the Britons led by Arthur and his knights, and the Saxons led by Cerdic and his son Cynric took place in the film just inside the wall.
Music
The opening track from Maxim's first solo effort Hell's Kitchen is named "Hadrian's Wall".
Television
The seventh episode for the eighth season of the documentary television series Modern Marvels, was about Hadrian's Wall. It was released on March 1, 2001.
Poetry
The English poet W. H. Auden wrote a script for a BBC radio documentary called Hadrian's Wall, which was broadcast on the BBC's north-eastern Regional Programme in 1937. Auden later published a poem from the script, "Roman Wall Blues", in his book Another Time. The poem is a brief monologue spoken in the voice of a lonely Roman soldier stationed at the wall.
Video games
Hadrian's Wall also appears in the latest entry in Ubisoft's long-standing historical fiction series Assassin's Creed Valhalla. The site can be visited by protagonist Eivor of the Raven Clan during the 870s.
Gallery
See also
Danevirke
English Heritage properties
Gask Ridge
Hadrianic Society
History of Cumbria
History of Northumberland
History of Scotland
Limes (Roman Empire)
List of walls
Offa's Dyke
Scots' Dike
Via Hadriana
References
Sources
Burton, Anthony. Hadrian's Wall Path. 2004. Aurum Press Ltd. .
Chaichian, Mohammad. 2014. "Hadrian's Wall: An Ill-Fated strategy for Tribal Management in Roman Britain", in Empires and Walls: Globalization, Migration, and Colonial Domination (Brill, pp. 23–52). https://www.amazon.com/Empires-Walls-Globalization-Migration-Domination/dp/1608464229.
Davies, Hunter. A Walk along the Wall, 1974. Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London .
de la Bédoyère, Guy. Hadrian's Wall: A History and Guide. Stroud: Tempus, 1998. .
England's Roman Frontier: Discovering Carlisle and Hadrian's Wall Country. Hadrian's Wall Heritage Ltd and Carlisle Tourism Partnership. 2010.
Forde-Johnston, James L. Hadrian's Wall. London: Michael Joseph, 1978. .
Hadrian's Wall Path (map). Harvey, 12–22 Main Street, Doune, Perthshire FK16 6BJ. harveymaps.co.uk
Moffat, Alistair, The Wall. 2008. Birlinn Limited Press. .
Speed, John – A set of Speed's maps were issued bound in a single volume in 1988 in association with the British Library and with an introduction by Nigel Nicolson as The Counties of Britain: A Tudor Atlas by John Speed.
Tomlin, R. S. O., "Inscriptions" in Britannia (2004), vol. xxxv, pp. 344–5 (the Staffordshire Moorlands cup naming the Wall).
Wilson, Roger J. A., A Guide to the Roman Remains in Britain. London: Constable & Company, 1980; .
External links
In Our Time Radio series with Greg Woolf, Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews, David Breeze, Former Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments for Scotland and Visiting Professor of Archaeology at the University of Durham and Lindsay Allason-Jones OBE, FSA, FSA Scot, Former Reader in Roman Material Culture at the University of Newcastle
Hadrian's Wall on the Official Northumberland Visitor website
Hadrian's Wall Discussion Forum
UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire
News on the Wall path
English Lakes article
iRomans—website with interactive map of Cumbrian section of Hadrian Wall
Well illustrated account of sites along Hadrian's Wall
122 establishments
128 establishments
120s establishments in the Roman Empire
2nd-century establishments in Roman Britain
2nd-century fortifications
Buildings and structures in Roman Britain
Anglo-Scottish border
Archaeological sites in Cumbria
Archaeological sites in Northumberland
Archaeological sites in Tyne and Wear
Border barriers
Buildings and structures completed in the 2nd century
Buildings and structures in Cumbria
Buildings and structures in Northumberland
Buildings and structures in Tyne and Wear
English Heritage sites in Cumbria
English Heritage sites in Northumberland
English Heritage sites in Tyne and Wear
Fortification lines
Hadrianic building projects
Military history of Cumbria
Military history of Northumberland
Military history of Tyne and Wear
Nerva–Antonine dynasty
Northern England
H
Roman fortifications in England
Roman frontiers
Fortifications in Roman Britain
Roman sites in Cumbria
Roman sites in Northumberland
Roman walls in England
Ruins in Cumbria
Ruins in Northumberland
Tourist attractions in Cumbria
Tourist attractions in Northumberland
Tourist attractions in Tyne and Wear
Walls
World Heritage Sites in England
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James Craig (31 October 1739 – 23 June 1795) was a Scottish architect who worked mostly in lowlands of the country and especially his native city of Edinburgh. He is remembered primarily for his layout of the first Edinburgh New Town.
Date of birth
James Craig's birth date is traditionally given as 1744, as his baptism is recorded in parish register as Tuesday 13 November 1744. However, more recent research has shown that his birth date was 31 October 1739, as recorded in the registers of George Watson's Hospital, where Craig was educated. As well as his date of birth, the records show he entered the school in 1748, and left in 1755. The 1744 date must therefore be incorrect, as it would mean he started school aged four, and left aged eleven. The baptism year, although not the date, has been shown to be in error, as 13 November fell on a Tuesday in 1739 also.
Early life
James Craig was the son of William Craig (1695–1762), a merchant, and Mary Thomson (1710–1790), sister of the poet James Thomson (1700–1748). In later life, the architect was famous for being the nephew of the poet. However, closer examination of his family history shows that he had well established links to Edinburgh Town Council, Edinburgh College and the city's Churches where he would later find work as an architect. He was also proud to be a Craig, and his letter seal bore the Craig arms and motto.
His father was William Craig, a son of Robert Craig (1660–1738), a businessman and successful local politician, and Elizabeth Handieside. He had eight siblings of whom James, John and Janet lived into later life, with other sisters Marion and Agnes also reaching adulthood. Witnesses to the births of Robert Craig's children denote his political and professional friends. These included politicians with links to the College and Town Council, and clergymen.
From 1694 Robert Craig had trained to be a merchant in Edinburgh. Though in late in life to do so, this decision was a good one as he and his elder brother, John Craig, who was a lawyer. Together the Craigs formed an effective partnership in managing money, loans, merchandise and property. The family legacy was that the architect James Craig inherited a family used to discussing and managing property planning and building.
From being a burgess and guildbrother of Edinburgh and a church elder (Greyfriars, Edinburgh, 1701 on), by 1704 Robert had been elected to the city's Town Council. Within two years he was Edinburgh College's Treasurer, and then Baillie of Leith in 1707, an Edinburgh Baillie after 1708, and Water Baillie of Leith in 1709. His rise was impressive enough to be elected a Governor of George Heriot's Hospital in 1710. The very same year he was made a burgess of the burgh of Canongate.
The next decade saw Robert Craig's political career continue to flourish. In 1713 he was elected Baron Baillie of Canongate, and from 1714 he became Edinburgh Town Council's moderator of stent tax, annually levied on property values, and its Dean of Guild. As Dean he held one of the top three posts in the Town Council beside the Treasurer and Lord Provost. He served a full three-year term in this post until 1717. In this period, from 1714 to 1716, he was Edinburgh's Commissioner of the General Convention of Royal Burghs. Here he saw applications from other Scottish towns and cities to expand and improve through new harbours, bridges and roads.
In his later years as an active politician until 1720 Robert Craig could be found in Town Council meetings and affairs as "Old Dean of Guild" Craig or "Old Baillie" Craig. He oversaw tax collection, accounts, the city's market and property management. He was clearly a capable and trusted administrator of the city's affairs, and one who oversaw building up the city's interests and physical size. As well as writing reports on the city's finances, in 1719 he also inspected land around Broughton and Multrees Hill - the area near where the New Town was planned out.
Robert Craig would have known many architects and tradesmen as well as politicians. Not least among these magistrates would have been George Drummond. From 1723 Drummond had the ambition to create Edinburgh's New Town through petitions to Parliament to building Register House.
Robert Craig's sons, James (1691–1775) and John became clerks to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland's Assembly in Edinburgh, and after 1715 joined his brother William in being made a burgess and guildbrother of Edinburgh through his father. The Craig family home was a temple tenement at the foot of West Bow facing the Corn Market. In later years, they all, including James the architect, lived in the first floor apartment of this property.
In business, Robert traded in many different goods but died leaving debts to be paid. William took on his business and managed his father's bank account into the 1740s. Newspaper advertisements from the 1730s and 1740s reveal that his shop was in Forglen's Land from where he also traded in many goods, including tobacco and sugar. William did not follow his father into Town Council politics, but in 1745 he was elected by the magistrates to be its sword and mace bearer for formal processions and ceremonies which gave an allowance of £200 (Scots). However, at the same time, like his father, he too ran into business difficulties.
Of the six children he and Mary Thomson had, James was the only one to survive infancy. By then 1750s, William Craig's business was in serious decline, and through rights of his grandfather and father's lives as merchants and familial poverty, James was able to claim a place at George Watson's College, which had been recently set up as a school to educate the sons of "deceased and indigent" merchants.
Although James Craig the architect celebrated his family's history primarily through the poet, James Thomson, a review of the books and goods he kept at the family home indicate that there were family heirlooms there inherited from his grandfather Robert. These included a twenty-four-hour clock and pewter plates. Other inheritances were probably old books on religion which Robert, James and John had kept.
However, it clear from his business affairs, library and goods, that Craig spent money collecting books and objects celebrating James Thomson and the poets and followers in his circle in England. In fact, Thomson's poetry influenced his work as an architect. He often edited his Uncle's poems to quote them on plans, or derived decorations for buildings based on Thomson's most famous poem, the Seasons. In business, he asked members of the Thomson family to help him. For his contract with the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh he had the financial support of blood relatives James Bell, a Minister in Coldstream, and rector of Lanark Grammar School, Robert Thomson.
From 1773 he lived with his uncle, also James Craig, Session Clerk to the High Court, at the foot of West Bow (sometimes then called the Well Bow), off the Grassmarket.
In 1775 he even donated a portrait by John Baptist Medina (1659–1710) of the poet to Edinburgh College, which was widely reported in the press and had a dedication to Thomson on its frame. Craig promoted himself as the most celebrated living relative of Thomson. Throughout his career as an architect he was widely noted as the poet's nephew in books, the media, and participated in public and private celebrations of Thomson's life and work in both England and Scotland.
As he grew older it was clear that James Craig family line was going to end with the architect's death. However, he had contact with relatives from the Thomson family in Lanarkshire. James Craig's focus on Thomson led to his obituary in volume IV of the Scots Register of 1796 suggesting that the architect believed he should be chosen for work primarily because of his relationship to the famous poet rather than sound business practice. The validity of this remark can be debated but it was clear to all that family commitments played significant roles in Craig's business and architecture.
Architectural training
In 1755 Craig left school aged sixteen. This was because he was to be the apprentice to the incorporation of wrights and masons of Edinburgh, and its Council Deacon Patrick Jamieson. Given the anticipation of the city's New Town through suggested plans, petitions, pamphlets and most recently the city's Improvement Act of 1753, taking up a career in building was confident and ambitious. The incorporation and Craig agreed that his training would begin in 1759 and run for the normal six-year period. Writing in April 1777, as an architect, Craig told Edinburgh Town Council's Chamberlain that he had been "bred in the executive part" of his business as an architect.
Whilst studying under Jamieson Craig would have seen and known the mason's building projects. These included the new Exchange building where Jamieson was chief mason. Through his master and such prestigious projects, Craig would have met a number of architects, including John Adam (1721–1792). He had designed the Exchange and was to later supervise Craig’s work in Edinburgh and elsewhere.
Like other apprentices, Craig was also expected to read architectural treatises, such as Palladio's books on architecture, and learn how to draw the architectutral orders, plan and survey buildings, use building materials and prepare accounts. The architecture books and equipment he kept in his apartment, together with sculptures of artists and writers there, indicate that Craig presented himself as a cultivated, skilled and tasteful architect. Like John Adam, Craig did not go on a "Grand Tour" of Europe to draw antiquities and study at academies or under other architects.
In fact, in 1762, just three years into his apprenticeship, his father died. Quite what the twenty three year old apprentice decided to do then remains unrecorded. Surviving evidence suggests he chose to develop a career as a draughtsman and architect.
He was due to complete his apprenticeship in 1765, and yet his name appeared in a published plan for the proposed bridge over the Nor Loch in the Scots Magazine in July 1763 North Bridge. Signed "James Craig Delint" it indicated his skill as a draughtsman, and intention to become known as a designer or architect.
Although the incorporation did not record Craig submitting his "essay" for examination and being accepted into the incorporation as a freeman mason in the usual way, in June 1765 the incorporation's rolls of apprentices does noted Deacon Jamieson discharging James Craig as his apprentice. This same year Craig was due to sit his essay to become a freeman mason of the incorporation, but the discharge meant that he missed this exam and never formally entered the incorporation itself.
Instead, he set himself up as a draughtsman or architect. For in 1765, Craig also prepared a plan for a road running from Holyrood through the south of Canongate dating to 1765 which was completed for the Middle Road District. Both the bridge and road indicate Craig's interest in town planning.
Architectural work
Edinburgh New Town and town planning
Following on from his work in 1765, Craig entered the competition to plan the New Town of Edinburgh in 1766 through which he won his fame and reputation as an architect. He spent the next fifteen years working on plans and buildings for the New Town, and presented two of these in the portrait painting David Allan made in 1781; a New Town plan with a central circus, and the Royal College of Physicians Hall with proposed wings to either side.
Plans for a New Town, to ease overcrowding in the medieval Royal burgh of Edinburgh, had been suggested since the late 17th century. However, it was not until the middle of the 18th century that Lord Provost George Drummond (1688–1766) succeeded in extending the town boundary to encompass the fields to the north of the Nor Loch. A competition was held in January 1766, in which six plans were entered. Craig's was considered the best, and he was awarded the prize; the Freedom of the City and a gold medal.
However, his design was not initially considered suitable for construction, and was reviewed by a committee, including the law judges Lord Kames (1696–1782), Lord Elliock (1712–1793) and Lord Hailes (1726–1792) and architects John Adam and William Mylne (1734–1790), and Sir James Clerk, 3rd Baronet (1709–1783). With the judges advice Craig drew up the final approved version, and a feuing plan to match it so that prospective property developers and owners could see what the New Town would look like and buy a building plot. It was formally adopted by Edinburgh Town Council in July 1767, and later that year presented to King George III (1738–1820). Craig soon had plan made into a print and copies were sold by bookshops and from his own home at the foot of Edinburgh's West Bow.
The plan comprised a simple rectilinear arrangement of three parallel main streets (Princes Street, George Street and Queen Street) with a square at each end (St Andrew Square and Charlotte Square). From 1770 to 1781 Craig offered at least three alternative New Town plans which included a large circus at the centre of the development, although this idea was never adopted.
Construction of the New Town began in 1767 with St Andrew's Square in the east, and continued until after Craig's death in 1795, with Charlotte Square being completed in 1800. Craig was responsible only for the layout of the streets, and had no design input into the appearance of most new buildings apart from his the Royal College of Physicians Hall and Library on the south side of George Street (1776–1781). Unbuilt designs included wings to either side of the Hall (1779–1781) and for the new Assembly Rooms on the same side of the street(1781), and for buildings on Lord Ankerville's plot on Princes Street(1777).
Craig is best known as the architect who planned Edinburgh's New Town and surviving examples of his work indicate that he had a profound interest in town planning and urban architecture.
In Edinburgh he designed other new streets and squares including St James Square and Merchant Street from 1772 to 1774. In the next decade he also proposed plans, such as in 1786 he published a pamphlet Plan for Improving the City of Edinburgh, which included proposals for remodelling the Old Town, with squares and crescents along the Royal Mile as his plan for the new south bridge and college. Two years later he then designed of a large square for the Edinburgh merchant Robert Hope which was also a development on the south side of Edinburgh. Other town plans included proposed development of Leith, including a long boulevard for Leith Walk linking that burgh with Edinburgh New Town.
In terms of actually surveying and building urban housing, in 1772 he prepared a property on the top floor of a tenement on Smith's Land on the north side of the High Street for sale, and in 1779 surveyed a tenement in Libberton Wynd and built a new one on North Bridge Street.
Elsewhere, Craig prepared plans for the development of Glasgow. This was firstly for Trongate's Tontine Hotel from 1781 to 1782. A decade later, he planned the Blythswood estate, to the city's west end, and adjoining lands owned by Glasgow Town Council. The city's town council minutes for 9 August 1792 recorded that " Mr Craig Architect in Edinbugh" was to " plan Meadowflatt for building ground as Mr Craig is employed by Colonel Campbell of Blythswood to make a plan of his building ground in the neighbourhood of Meadowflatt and it will be attended with considerable advantage to have the streets upon the two grounds uniform to and corresponding with each other". While nothing was built until the 19th century, Craig may be responsible for the strict grid layout of the area and thereby responsible for shaping both central Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Other works
Town council architect
Craig never held a salaried post as architect to Edinburgh Town Council or any other Scottish Town Council but he did enjoy the patronage of several Edinburgh Lord Provosts from Gilbert Laurie in 1767 to David Steuart in 1781, and was employed to work in other towns and cities in Scotland including Dundee and Glasgow. In Dundee he designed the new church in 1769 which later became St Andrew's Church, and his work in Glasgow took place from 1781 to 1792.
But, it was for Edinburgh Town Council that he worked the longest. Remembering that this Town Council oversaw the New Town's planning and building meant that Craig frequently presented plans to Lord Provosts and its committees for approval. Such presentations included those for the New Town plan leading to the final authorized plan, and feuing plan, of 1767. These were followed by the circus plan variants of 1770, 1774 and 1780.
Despite not being adopted, Craig retained the confidence of the magistrates and merchants who dominated it. For example, in 1774 the Merchant Company of Edinburgh asked Craig to plan it a new street, south of the Old Town's Cowgate. To advertise it for development, Craig proposed a facades of its buildings.
Following the New Town, the Town Council asked Craig to plan the Town its Observatory on Calton hill from 1775 to 1776 and he was then contracted to build it. The new City Observatory on Calton Hill had a gothic tower, now known as Observatory House, which was the only part to be completed before money ran out in 1777. The rest was finally finished in 1792, although this too was replaced, by William Henry Playfair (1790–1857) in 1818.
In 1777 Craig was then asked to plan the refurbishment of the New Church St Giles' Cathedral, and entered the competition to plan Leith Ballast Quay. He was initially chosen to build the quay but was replaced by mason, William Jamieson, son of his former master in the incorporation of wrights and masons. He also in this year planned the funerary monument for Lord Provost Alexander Kincaid intended.
The New Church work kept Craig busy from 1780 and 1781. In these years, he also prepared plans for the proposed new Bridewell, new Edinburgh College classrooms and oversaw the building of Leith Gun Battery Leith where he had design control over the building elevations but not over technical aspects of the fort. The main gate and guard house remain, although the rest of the fort was demolished in the 1950s.
Such public architecture projects were commonly funded by Edinburgh Town Council working in partnership with national government. For examples, the New Church and Leith Gun Battery were partially funded by government grants. Other projects, such as the Inverkeithing Lazaretto in 1771, Royal Botanical Gardens from 1774 to 1782, and May Island Lighthouse in 1786 were all also partially funded through national government and its agencies.
Physicians' Hall
Politicians aside, another significant source of patronage and friendship Craig enjoyed was from academic professionals including physicians, lawyers, professors to gentlemen living in country houses.
The most significant building Craig designed and undertook in the Edinburgh New Town was Hall and Library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1776–1781) on the south side of George Street, directly facing the later church of St Andrews and St George on the opposite side of the Street. In 1775 former College President Sir Alexander Dick of Prestonfield expressed his approval of the college's choice of Craig as the architect of its long-awaited new Hall. This was not first time that Craig had worked with physicians. Whilst in London in 1767 and 1768, he worked with Sir John Pringle (1707–1782) to present his New Town plan to King George III, then in 1772 in Edinburgh he planned the development of Robertson's Close for Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
For the Physicians' Hall, Craig worked closely with William Cullen (1710–1790) to agree his contract and then present drawings and proposals for the Hall's enlargement to the Town Council from 1776 to 1780. Over this period of time, Craig also worked with other physicians in the College including Joseph Black (1728–1799) and John Robison (1739–1805) for the Calton Hill Observatory, John Hope (1725–1786), the botanist, for the Botanical Gardens and President Alexander Monro (1733–1817) to hand the hall to the College to use.
The rising cost of the building, partially due to wage strikes by journeymen in 1778 and 1779, led to disagreements between the College and Craig. It was never completed to the architect's satisfaction lacking it balustrade and statues on the exterior. Once built, the College considered offering it as the New Town Assembly Rooms for rent to recover costs, but decided to move in. By 1843 it was found to be inconvenient and was demolished that year, to be replaced by a banking hall by David Rhind (1808–1883).
From 1774 to 1782 Craig worked on the Botanical Gardens which was the on Leith Walk. He produced plans for its entrance, greenhouses, gardener's cottage and several monuments. In 1778, he also oversaw the construction of Robert Adam's plan for the monument to Carl Linnaeus.
Lawyers
Elsewhere in Edinburgh, from 1778 to 1779 Craig planned the new hall of the Writers to the Signet, which had they been adopted, would have given the architect a new building project to follow immediately on from the Physicians Hall. He had some friends and patrons among lawyers, including enjoying the confidence of one of the judges of the New Town plan, Lord Kames, and was an occasional social acquaintance with celebrated lawyer, James Boswell (1740–1795). Another prominent lawyer who was a patron was Robert Gray, Procurator Fiscal of Edinburgh. Craig prepared a site plan for him bearing the title, "Plan of Mr Gray's property designed by James Craig". It is undated but was once situated on Leith Walk nearby St James Square, which Craig also designed. In fact, such was the proximity of the house and square that Gray and the square's developer, the writer, Walter Ferguson, faced one another in the Court of Session in 1775 and again in 1791. These developments, including the plan Craig prepared for Leith Walk, which is again undated, shows that the architect was prepared to plan out new developments in and near Edinburgh. Lawyers Craig knew through their interests in property development such as, James Jollie, and representing architects and tradesmen in court, such as John Eiston, held land by the Walk which Craig's plan noted.
Other less well known lawyers with whom he worked included property lawyers Walter Ferguson, James McQueen, in legal disputes, John Eiston and financing loans William McEwan and Samuel Watson. He continued to prepare layouts for new developments, including St James Square, to the east of the New Town, in 1773. Most of the square was demolished in the 1950s to make way for the St. James Centre shopping and office complex. Later, Craig prepared plans for new classrooms for the College of Edinburgh in 1781. The room was for Alexander Tytler (1747–1784), Professor of Universal History, and Allan Maconochie (1748–1816), Professor of Public Law.
Church architecture
Given Craig's own family link with the Presbyterian Church and Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh, he can be found working as an architect in churches. Such work was also a route to be considered for national government patronage via its close contact with the Assembly. In fact, his New Town plans showed new churches were a constantly in his thoughts, and the presence of Alexander Webster (1708–1784) on the project's administrative committees meant that the architect often worked closely with the Minister. But, it was in 1769 that he planned a new church for Dundee. Also north of the Firth of Forth, from 1773 to 1775, Craig planned to refurbish St Salvator's and St Leonard's College Chapels in St Andrews. He worked on the former.
Meanwhile, in 1775 he planned and built a funerary monument for John Fullarton of Carberry inside St Michael's church, where Alexander Carlyle (1722–1805) was its Minister Inveresk.
From 1775 to 1776, he planned the new seating plan for Kinghorn Parish Church in Fife; an exercise which he then returned to for the Edinburgh New Church in 1777. This New Church refurbishment would also have meant working with its Minister, Hugh Blair (1718–1800), who was also Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at Edinburgh College. Given his connection with Dr Carlyle, and James Thomson, Blair may have warmed to Craig's obvious interests in literature and education with the architect drawn to the Moderate party of the Church of Scotland. As if to illustrate his commitment to Scottish literature, in 1788 Craig worked with Professor William Richardson (1743–1814) of Glasgow College and other Glaswegians and local me to erect a monument commemorating George Buchanan (1506–1582) at Killearn. Craig could not afford to subscribe money but offered to plan it for free. It was a large obelisk and won his wide media coverage and acclaim.
In later years, Craig prepared plans for new seating for South Leith Church from 1789 and 1793. In 1791, the architect claimed payment for plans he had made for Edinburgh's St Cuthbert's Church. The precise date of this work remains unknown but they probably related to work there from either 1773 to 1775, or in 1789 when a new steeple was put up.
Engineering projects
James Craig worked on some engineering projects, which was a consequence of his work as an architect and the demand for improvements for trade, transport and industry. The Edinburgh north and south bridge projects have already been mentioned, and from 1777 to 1779 he and John Adam inspected building work by the north bridge for the Dean of Guild Court. Other work undertaken in 1777 which touched upon engineering included the Leith Ballast Quay.
However, most of Craig's engineering projects appear to have proposed in the 1780s. Another bridge project he enquired about was the Bridge of Dun over the Esk for Montrose Town Council. Correspondence between the architect and Town Council's clerk was exchanged between 1783 and 1784. Other projects north of the Forth was Craig's survey and plan of May Island Lighthouse in 1786 for the newly established Chamber of Commerce. It decided against using Craig's proposed plans because there was no precedant for them. Later, Craig also proposed an improved Kirkcadly Harbour in 1788.
Country houses
Although Craig is best known for his urban architecture, he did also work on some country houses belonging to prestigious clients. Among these were proposed improvements to Mountstuart House for Earl Bute, for which Craig surveyed, and made plans from 1769 to 1770. Later, he also surveyed and planned Dalkeith Palace for the Duke of Buccleuch (1746–1812) in 1776, and in 1785 he surveyed and proposed improvements for Callender House which the businessman William Forbes of Callendar(1756–1823) had purchased. Although undated, Craig also worked at Hopetoun House to plan a new farm on its estate.
Smaller scale projects for country houses included providing an elevation of Mountquhanie House in Fife in 1770 for John Gillespie, and from 1774 to 1775 Craig provided Noel Hill, 1st Lord Berwick, with a drawing of Tern Hall in Shropshire at a time when Hill proposed to convert it into Attingham Hall. This remains Craig's only known English house project although he travelled between England and Scotland many times. In 1790 he designed the stable block at Newhailes House in Musselburgh.
Grave
Craig died at his house at West Bow of consumption (tuberculosis) in 1795. He was buried in the Craig family plot in northmost section of Greyfriars Kirkyard. At the time gravestones were only permitted on the perimeter wall of Greyfriars so no stone was permitted (a stone was later added). No record of who attended his funeral has been found but his death was widely reported in the British press typically commenting that the architect of the New Town and nephew of James Thomson has died. These facts were commonly reported again in subsequent press reports running into the next century.
He died in debt and his goods and books, drawings and equipment were sold at auction to pay creditors in the same year, with their matters for finally settled three years later. Craig was not the only architect or tradesman to have faced financial difficulties, but the commissary court's inventories of his possessions give a fascinating insight into his life and work. No copies of Coernelius Elliot's auction catalogues of Craig's goods and drawings are known to have survived.
Craig was never able to fully capitalise on his success as the architect of the New Town. The management of the project did not lie with him, or any architect, but with Edinburgh Town Council. After 1767, and due to meeting its own financial commitments, the magistrates favoured builders rather than architects. Other causes of frustration were equally also out of his hands and these included political changes within Edinburgh Town Council. Given Craig's heyday was in the 1770s whenSir Lawrence Dundas (1710–1781) dominated Edinburgh, the fall of the Baronet from power after 1781, and the rise of the new regime under Henry Dundas (1742–1811) and the Duke of Buccleuch gave new architects and more builders opportunities to impress the city's leaders. By then, Craig had a reputation for being expensive, as per the Physicians Hall and Observatory, and headstrong in his criticism, as some of his existing letters indicate.
By 1782, his letters to his banker, and confidante, Sir William Forbes (1739–1806), indicate both his frustration at exclusion from work and need to raise money through loans. This need led him to raise loans from lawyers, merchants and others some of whom are listed by the commissary court in 1795. Fatally, such was his inability to replay loans quickly that he had his bank account arrested. For on 16 September 1791 the Town Council Alexander Dawson, a teller in the Royal Bank of Scotland, stopped Craig being paid £350 for work done for the city. The Commissary court records of 1795 indicate Craig had borrowed money from Dawson in 1786. This incident shows that he may have borrowed even more. Had the architect been able to keep his account and receive payment then he may have died without debt. Later critical reviews of his ability as an architect may have different as most focus on his shortcomings as a businessman. To date there is only one published assessment of his drawings or approach to design from sketch to final measured drawing.
If the first half of his career was a period when he did most in Edinburgh, the second half, from 1782 on, shows Craig moving around the country more. In 1787 he even wrote to James Boswell to enquire about moving to work in London. Despite being prepared to travel to work, his financial difficulties led to more frequent appearances in Edinburgh's courts either chasing unpaid bills or being chased for his own debts. Soon, it appears that cash in hand work was the best form of payment for Craig as his debtors circled his bank accounts. In theory, Craig offered Edinburgh town plans featuring circuses, an octagon, a crescent and squares. They were all features which broke what he himself called the "monotony of the straight line". Ironically, it is the grid plan of the New Town for which he is best known. The inventiveness of his town planning matched that of his plans for the Writers' Court and May Island Lighthouse and give reason for why he was known for ingenuity.
Craig was buried in the Craig family plot. It was unmarked. The family was not known for its wealth and on death James' family line ended. He did, however, give it some fame from his work as an architect. Despite his occasional quarrelsome correspondence, commonly caused by non-payment or refusal to adhere to advice, Craig did have friends and allies. Dr William Cullen, Dugald Stewart (1753–1828), Lord Kames, Sir Alexander Dick of Prestonfield, Dr John Hope, James Boswell, Alexander Adam (1741–1809) and many more can be found on good terms with him and after death Craig's reputation as a being a respectable or eminent architect was not tarnished by his debts as when media reports appeared his work and relationship to Thomson was remembered. Legacies of his career today include monuments such as the Fullarton (Inveresk Church) and Buchanan monument (Killearn) as well as the New Town plans of Edinburgh and Glasgow where the grid of streets contrasts Craig's own interests in introducing circuses, octagons and other features to break the pattern up. James Begg was also his draughtsman and pupil who later became the architect of Edinburgh's Gayfield Square.
Due to complex bans on monuments in Greyfriars' churchyard (not lifted until the late 19th century) the grave was only marked in the 1930s, then being done as part of half a dozen new memorials to notable persons by the Saltire Society. Subsequent celebrations of Craig and his work have been undertaken in Edinburgh through temporary museum exhibitions in 1967 and 1995, displaying his portrait and surviving mathematical instruments at Huntly House/Museum of Edinburgh, and numerous publications on the New Town with one, James Craig, 1744–1795,The Ingenious Architect of the New Town of Edinburgh (Mercat Press, 1995) being the only book of essays focussing on the architect.
References
Colvin, Howard (1978) A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600–1840, John Murray, pp. 237–238
Cruft, Kitty, and Lewis, Anthony. "James Craig, a Biographical Sketch", in Cruft, Kitty, and Fraser, Andrew. (1995) James Craig 1744–1795. Mercat Press.
Cruft, Kitty, Fraser, Andrew, and Lewis, Anthony. "Descriptive List of Works and Projects by James Craig", in Cruft, Kitty, and Fraser, Andrew. (1995) James Craig 1744–1795. Mercat Press.
1739 births
1795 deaths
Burials at Greyfriars Kirkyard
Scottish architects
People educated at George Watson's College
Place of birth missing
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The Cataract Dam is a heritage-listed dam in Cataract (formerly Appin), New South Wales, Australia, provides water to the Macarthur and Illawarra regions, the Wollondilly Shire, and metropolitan Sydney. It is one of four dams and weirs in the catchment of the Upper Nepean Scheme. Completed in 1907 under the supervision of Ernest Macartney de Burgh, the dam is currently owned by Water NSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. The dam was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register on 18 November 1999.
Structural details
A gravity dam with an unlined side spillway extending from the left abutment, it is tall; long; and it holds of water. Cataract Dam was the first dam built in the Upper Nepean Scheme. It was also first dam in Australia to use pre-cast moulded concrete blocks for the upstream face of the dam. The downstream face is of mass poured basalt concrete, with a basalt facing. A readily accessible source of suitable rock was located at Sherbrooke, situated near the top of Bulli Pass. To transport the basalt from the quarry to the dam construction site, a gauge steam tramway, long, was constructed.
The dam is built of cyclopean masonry, composed of sandstone blocks weighing from . These were quarried at the site and bedded in cement mortar. The vertical joints were filled with basalt or sandstone concrete. The upstream face consisted of basalt concrete moulded blocks set in a cement mortar. The downstream face was of basalt concrete, thick in the lower section and thick in the upper section. There were two lines of diameter pipes which passed through the dam and discharged water into the Nepean River. The flow is controlled by a Larner Johnson needle valve. The dam wall was given a decorative finish. The upstream parapet was castellated with sandstone blocks while the top of the downstream wall was corbelled in concrete. In approximately the midsection of the dam stands the valve house. This is finished in quarried sandstone blocks with ashlar coursing. It features a steeply pitched slate-covered pipped roof topped with finials and gables at either side.
Dam construction began in 1902 and was completed in 1907, and the spillway was widened in 1915. E. M. de Burgh was the supervising engineer for the project from 1904.
History
The Upper Nepean Scheme was commenced in 1880 after it was realised that the Botany Swamps scheme was insufficient to meet Sydney's water supply needs. The Nepean project consisted of the construction of a weir across the Nepean River to divert of the rivers Cataract, Cordeaux, Avon and Nepean, to the Prospect Reservoir.
The design and construction of Cataract Dam was undertaken by the Water Supply and Sewerage Branch and Harbour and Rivers Branch of the New South Wales Public Works Department. The construction of the dam necessitated the knowledge and experience of a number of engineers employed in the branches at the time including Cecil Darley (NSW Inspecting Engineer in London), Leslie Wade (Principal Engineer, Water Supply and Sewerage Branch), Henry Dare and Ernest M. de Burgh (Supervising Engineers). The successful completion of the dam and its continuation of use as a water supply dam are a lasting testament to the professional capabilities of the late Victorian/Edwardian era generation of engineers of the Public Works Department. The association of Thomas Keele with the initial dam proposal, and the subsequent problems associated with the cost and the ongoing Royal Commissions into the project was immortalised through Banjo Paterson's satirical ballad The Dam that Keele Built.
Appin
Appin town's name came about, despite that most local settlers came from Irish stock, due to Governor Macquarie's arrival in the colony in 1810. At the time, Government House was in Parramatta and one of Macquarie's first intentions was to travel into the nearby country to discover the best land from which the colony could be provided with food. It was already known that the most productive area for that purpose was the Hawkesbury River country, but these districts had proven precarious because of severe flooding which caused great losses in crops and stock.
The land Macquarie intended to study lay between the Nepean and Georges Rivers. There had been no identification of the land which ran as far south as the Cataract River and was bounded on the west by the Nepean River and on the east by the Georges River. On completion of his survey, this area reminded him so much of his own (home) district in Scotland that he called it the Airds district. Some time later he named the section south, including Mount Gilead, Appin.
One of the earliest buildings in the town, still standing, is the Anglican school, where the first generation of children born in Appin received their education. This was erected about 1815.
Macquarie gave many grants of land in order to develop the land. The first was granted to Sydney magistrate and acting commissary-general, William Broughton. There were several other grants of smaller amounts, made on condition that after five years, unless sufficient progress had been made in cropping and stocking, the land would revert to the Crown. The district became a great supplier of wheat, corn and barley, carried to Sydney by wagons pulled by teams of bullocks or horses.
The northern boundary of the Appin district is the property known as Mount Gilead, which was granted to Reuben Uther. Some years later it was purchased by a Sydney businessman, Thomas Rose, who was credited with building the first dam for water conservation in the colony (here). This was carried out very thoroughly and with great expense. He was generous with the water conserved and allowed his neighbours to water their stock in very dry times.
He applied to the Governor for some reimbursement, but was refused. This dam was built in 1824. In 1836 Rose built the huge stone windmill, one of the largest of its kind which gave great service for many years grinding wheat of the surrounding areas. In those early years, in a good season, yields in some areas were as high as 45 bushels to the acre. The windmill is still standing; that is the four-storey tower which has long been converted to a water tank; but the top hammer and sails have long-since disappeared.
On the southern side, Mount Gilead was joined by the Hume (family) properties, Beulan and Meadowvale (formerly Rockwood). These and others such as Fairview, Blossom Lodge, Mount Carlon and the big poultry farm conducted by Ingham enterprises are all on the western side of the Appin Road. Opposite the last property is one known as Kildare, one of the pioneer homes of the Irish Dwyer family.
Further west was Lesson's Green, an grant to William Crowe, the northern boundary of which joined a grant to John Dwyer, which in turn joined Macquarie Dale, a second grant of made to William Broughton in 1816, which ran as far (west) as the Nepean River. South of this is the property of Elladale, of granted to Alexander Riley in 1812, the boundary to Macquarie Dale (of which) is Elladale Creek. This was later greatly reduced in size by subdivisions and sales. By about 1840, when purchased by Rev. Sparling, the first incumbent at St. Mark's Anglican Church in Appin, it had shrunk to .
On its southern boundary, it was joined by Broughton's Lachlan Vale (the first land grant in the area). That property in turn joined John Kennedy's original grant, that he named Teston. In later years, different owners added to it, growing the property to over . This acreage on the south side joined the area known as Mount Brittain of , a grant to William Sykes. With further grants it became over .
Further south, Mount Brittain joined a grant to James Jordan, the southern boundary being the Cataract River and here was the place known as Jordan's Crossing, where the road from Mount Keira (now Picton Road) crossed the river. There were a number of small grants on the way back to Appin such as those of John Firth, Edward McGee, John Trotter, Nicholas Bryan and Matthew Pearce () and several others. Laurence D'Arcy was also granted joining Jordan's and named it Spring Valley.
Other grantees were James Byrne () and Andrew Byrne who had a grant between what is now Ingham enterprises and John Anderson's property that he named Ousedale, the creek that ran through it still bearing this name. A number of the small grants were brought together by purchase and the well-known property of Windmill Hill came into being, owned by William Larkin. This name was given to it because Larkin built a timber windmill on the highest part of it (about the mid-1840s) and it gave great service for many years. The farm later became the property of the Winton family who ran it as a dairy farm until recent years.
Appin has two solidly-built stone churches, St. Bede's Roman Catholic and St. Mark's Anglican. Both were built about the same time, 1840–41 and have stood the test of time. Both are equipped with very good bells.
The population of Appin was quite large: in 1825 the number was 562. A large number of farmers were engaged in wheat, barley, corn and vegetable growing for the Sydney market.
Upper Nepean Scheme
The Upper Nepean Scheme was commenced in 1880 after it was realised that the Botany scheme was insufficient to meet Sydney's water supply needs. The scheme was estimated to be capable of supplying the needs of a population up to 540,000. In 1902, a severe drought caused the water in Prospect Reservoir to fall below gravitational flow to the Lower Canal, resulting in a serious water shortage for Sydney's 523,000 inhabitants.
The seriousness of the position led the NSW Government, in March 1902, to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into and report upon the Sydney water supply system. The main recommendation of the Commission was that a storage dam be constructed at a point below the junction of Cataract Creek with the Cataract River. The site was selected as a result of a joint investigation and survey by the staff of the Public Works Department and the Water Board. The survey reports proposed the construction of a dam capable of impounding approximately 7000 million gallons of water, with the option of raising the walls at some future time to allow for the catchment of up to .
The Act authorising the construction of the dam was passed in 1902 and provided for a wall of with a storage capacity of . By June 1903, much of the area to be submerged had been cleared of timber, with excavations for the foundations having begun by the end of the year.
The contract for the work was let to Messrs Lane and Peters and, by 1905, was well underway with a completion date expected within two years. The contract was for a dam high from the natural flow of the river, which would store up to . During construction, the Minister for Public Works, in a measure of economy, directed that the dam wall be reduced in height by thereby reducing the storage capacity from . The Board however, acting on advice of its President, urged the Minister to have the dam built to its original dimensions. This request was then forwarded to a Royal Commission which, after a full investigation, recommended that the dam be built to its full height and capacity. The work proceeded on this basis and was completed toward the end of 1907 for a total cost of $658,272 and was transferred to the Board on 10 June 1908. The reservoir was filled to capacity for the first time on 13 January 1911, at which time it became obvious that the spillway should be widened to avoid any risk of flood waters overtopping the wall. This work was completed in 1915.
In December 2016 the state government gave approval for the controversial South 32 Dendrobium coal mine, in the Metropolitan Special Area, created to protect the waters of Cataract, Cordeaux, Avon and Nepean Reservoirs.
Description
The Cataract Dam is built of cyclopean masonry composed of sandstone blocks, weighing from , quarried at the site and bedded in a cement mortar. The vertical joints were filled with basalt or sandstone concrete. The upstream face consisted of basalt concrete moulded blocks set in a cement mortar. The downstream face was of basalt concrete, thick in the lower section and thick in the upper levels. There were two lines of diameter pipes which passed through the dam and discharged water into the river. The flow is now controlled by an AGE Ring Faulkner valve. There is also a Ring Faulkner Gate Valve and a Fixed Crane Dispersion Valve.
The dam wall was given a decorative finish. The upstream parapet was castellated with sandstone blocks, whilst the top of the downstream wall was corbelled in concrete. Near the centre of the dam wall stands the valve house, finished in sandstone ashlar masonry. It has a slate clad, hipped roof featuring ridgecap finials and with parapet gable ends on the north and south sides and segmental arched parapets on the east and west sides.
Specifications for Cataract Dam:
Date of construction: 1902 - 1907.
Masonry in wall and spillway: .
Length of dam: .
Length of bywash: .
Width at base: .
Width at crest: .
Greatest depth of water: .
Full supply level: .
Area of lake: .
Capacity: .
The water from Cataract Dam is discharged as required into the Cataract River downstream to Broughton's Pass. There it is diverted by another weir into Cataract Tunnel, long, (the first structure of the Upper Canal) by which it is conveyed to Prospect Reservoir.
Associated with the Dam is the Cataract Dam Official Quarters, situated close to the dam wall at the northern end. This single-storey, Federation Queen Anne style house was built in 1910 for the use of Water Board staff during construction of the dam. It is built of ashlar sandstone masonry quarried on the site and features a verandah at the front with elaborate timber posts with curved quadrant brackets, a vertical slatted balustrade and pediment gable over the main entrance way. When built, the house contained a board room, offices, four bedrooms and a kitchen. Over the years, it has provided accommodation for inspecting officers and important visitors. It is still used by SCA and can now provide sleeping accommodation for twelve people. It is open to the public for holiday rental. The gardens around the house are landscaped lawns with garden beds edged with sandstone. Also made of sandstone is a detached garage, refurbished and converted to a conference hall. There are two amenity blocks, also of sandstone masonry featuring castellated parapets and a tennis court stands at the rear of the lawn. Surrounding the garden is a castellated sandstone fence with decorative entrance posts.
A further three sandstone cottages are located to the east of the Dam. These staff cottages were built to identical designs with minor detail differences and have corrugated-iron clad, multi-gabled roofs. There is a substantial brick house dating from the 1950s/60s located between the cottages and the Official Quarters, which is single-storied with a terracotta tiled hipped and gabled roof. It is a simple bungalow form with timber casement and sash windows and has a separate garage with attached living quarters at the rear of the main building.
The public area surrounding the dam is maintained and a large picnic area, shelter sheds, fireplaces and playground area are provided amongst attractive gardens. The site contains many intact elements of the early 20th century landscape design scheme (1910s-1920s?): walling; ornamental gardens (layout and plantings - including Cryptomeria, Stenocarpus, Cupressus, Pinus, Podocarpus, Liquidamber, Jacaranda and Phoenix); structures, especially those echoing aspects of the dam wall parapet construction (e.g. castellated walling elsewhere on site and gate piers); various residences & associated gardens; garden structures such as the cement faux-log bridge near the dam wall; various sculpted cement grottoes; and propagation structures doubling as bushhouses and/or greenhouses. In the broader landscape context, the visual catchment associated with the site is extensive and scenically impressive.
The Conservation Management Plan outlines the key elements and their individual significance assessments.
Condition
As at 21 January 2009, the condition of the dam is good. The Cataract Dam has a very high level of integrity, with most of its original staff residential cottages and the Official Residence. Many elements of the original landscaping of the site are still apparent however the richness and detail of the original garden plantings have been lost over the last few decades.
Modifications and dates
1940 - Torpedo Booms were installed.
1962 - The Upper Valve House was rebuilt.
1987 - Wall strengthened by installation of post-tensioned anchors.
The original Larner Johnson Needle Valve has been replaced with an AGE Ring Faulkner Valve.
Spillway and dam upgraded for dam safety purposes in 1981 and 1989.
Further information
Cataract Dam is located in Wollondilly and Wollongong LGAs.
Heritage listing
As at 21 January 2009, Cataract Dam was the first of the four water supply dams built as part of the development of the Upper Nepean Water Supply Scheme, one of the most important engineering works and items of public infrastructure in Australia. Cataract Dam was designed by engineers of the Public Works Department under direction of two of Australia's leading water supply engineers, L.A.B. Wade, Chief Engineer for Water Supply and Sewerage and E.M. De Burgh, who was Supervising Engineer.
The completion of Cataract Dam was a significant step in the continuing process of providing a reliable water supply for Sydney and surrounding areas and was part of a process of development of the Upper Nepean Scheme which was envisaged when that Scheme was designed in the 1880s. Cataract Dam was the largest dam constructed in NSW at the time and was considered to be a significant work of engineering in its day. It continues to play an important role as a major source of water supply for the Sydney area. Additionally, the Cataract Dam is a handsome, well proportioned structure with strong Tudor style architectural character which complements the monumental nature of the structure and its attractive natural surroundings.
Cataract Dam includes a range of ancillary structures which form components of the overall site, including a set of handsome sandstone masonry residential cottages for operational staff (which appear to date from the construction of the dam). They are representative of their age and type.
The Official Quarters is a particularly fine example of a Federation Queen Anne Bungalow, with matching outbuildings and landscaped gardens and is associated with the accommodation of both the senior engineers of the Public Works Department and the Governor of NSW at the opening of the Dam. The Residential Engineers Cottage is also a fine quality building dating from the 1960s.
The Dam surrounds include remnants of its early 20th century gardens, evidence of a high level of landscape design awareness through its planning and detailing, and extensive areas of bushland. Individual components of its remnant gardens, such as its main (upper level) grotto shelter and ornamental follies, are rare in NSW on account of their imaginative conception and quality of craftsmanship. The extensive scale of the remnant area of public parklands is notable and that they continue to attract regular visitation since their opening indicates that the place is highly regarded. The immediate environment around the dam wall - including the key engineering structures and associated architecture, the upstream body of water, the downstream gorge and surrounding vegetation - forms a localised cultural landscape of scenic distinction.
Cataract Dam was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 1999 having satisfied the following criteria.
The place is important in demonstrating the course, or pattern, of cultural or natural history in New South Wales.
Cataract Dam is located within the Upper Nepean Catchment Area which has developed with the completion of the Cataract and Nepean tunnels in 1888 as the fourth source of water supply for Sydney. The potential of the Upper Nepean Catchment Area to supply water was fully developed through the construction of four major dams between 1903 and 1936. Cataract Dam is the first of these dams to have been completed. The Upper Nepean Catchment Area continues to supply the regions of Sydney and the Illawarra, with Cataract Dam providing a supply to the Sydney Region.
Cataract Dam was the first of the major water supply dams constructed in NSW. The completion of the dam necessitated the introduction of methods of construction hitherto unseen in NSW in regard to dam engineering. The practices of construction developed at Cataract Dam set the pattern for the completion of all subsequent dams in NSW up to the late 1940s.
Up until the completion of Cordeaux Dam in 1926, the impounded water of Cataract Dam provided the main reserve source of water for domestic and industrial consumption in metropolitan Sydney, the largest city in NSW. In providing water for metropolitan Sydney during this era the dam, in ensuring security of supply, contributed to the extensive residential, commercial and industrial development of Sydney during the first decades of the twentieth century.
The place has a strong or special association with a person, or group of persons, of importance of cultural or natural history of New South Wales's history.
The design and construction of Cataract Dam was undertaken by the Water Supply and Sewerage Branch and Harbour and Rivers Branch of the NSW Public Works Department. The construction of the dam necessitated the dedication of the knowledge and experience of a number of the engineers employed in the branches at the time including Cecil W. Darley (NSW inspecting engineer in London), Leslie A.B. Wade (principal engineer - Water Supply and Sewerage Branch), Henry H. Dare and Ernest de Burgh (supervising engineers). The successful completion of the dam and its continuation of use as a water supply dam are lasting testament to the professional capabilities of the late Victorian/Edwardian era generation of engineers in the Public Works Department. The association of Thomas W. Keele with the initial dam proposal, and the subsequent problems associated with the cost and the ongoing Royal Commissions into the project was immortalised through Banjo Patterson's poem "The Dam that Keele Built".
The Manor was purpose built in 1910 as the quasi-private domain of the Board members of the Water Board. The building and its grounds have particular associations with past identities of the Board.
The island and the inlets of Lake Cataract are associated with past identities of the Water Board through memorialisation of their surnames. A well known example is Keele Island named after Thomas William Keele, the president of the former Metropolitan Board of Water Supply and Sewerage at the time of the dam's construction.
The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.
The wall of Cataract Dam is an engineering work imbued with a sense of high aesthetic values expressed through a well proportioned high and straight wall set within the gorge of the Cataract River.
The design and finishes of the crest house, albeit substantially reconstructed c.1953, parapet and abutments were undertaken by the Government's Architect Branch of the Department of Public Works, at the time under Walter Liberty Vernon. It exhibits stylistic traits which evoke the era of its construction and impart a park-like appearance to the dam.
The Manor, completed in 1910, is dramatically set within the platform of the cableway and quarry used in the construction of the dam. The sense of elevation and axial relationship to the wall is accentuated by the adjoining drive which is flanked by an avenueof Phoenix palms and Jacranda and the flight of concrete and stone steps which provide the principal means of access to the wall. There is a high level of design awareness in the planning of the grounds and the association with the Botanic Gardens in the layout and selection of species is of considerable note.
The Manor, which is constructed in stone and finished internally to a very high standard, is complemented by four near contemporary stone workmen's family cottages and a 1920s brick resident officer's residence which are equally designed and finished to a high quality.
The dam is set within the valley of the Cataract River: upstream of the dam wall there is a substantial area of native bushland characterised by the broad expanse of the pool of water bordered by the crests of the valley sides and Keele Island. Downstream of the dam wall the setting is characterised by the steeper inclines that graduate into the gorge created by the river's flow over time. The topography in times of high water level imparts a picturesque scene viewed from selective vantage points above and on the dam wall.
The adjoining hill of approach to the dam is laid-out with a plantation of Monterey Pines, which in juxtaposition with the paths, drives, culverts, steps and cottages impart a parklike setting.
The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group in New South Wales for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.
The dam and grounds are recognised by the National Trust of Australia (NSW) as being a place which is part of the cultural environment of Australia, which has aesthetic, historical, architectural, archaeological, scientific and social significance for future generations, as well as for the present community of NSW.
The dam and grounds are recognised by the Heritage Council of NSW as a place which is of significance to NSW in relation to its historical, scientific, cultural, social, archeological, natural and aesthetic values.
The dam wall is recognised as an engineering feat of national significance by the Institute of the Engineers of Australia.
The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.
The grounds of the dam contain a yard of valves removed from Cataract and Woronora Dams, and items of plant and machinery used during the construction and maintenance of the Upper Canal.
The hillside overlooking the dam was the site of the original construction village and retains steps and engravings cut within the rock outcrops dating from this era.
The cyclopean masonry of the dam is a unique example of this type of gravity dam construction and demonstrates the principal characteristics of this technology. The lower valve house completed in 1907and extended in 1913 is a unique early example of its type and demonstrates the principal characteristics of the design of such structures. The water supply system completed in 1907 retains it gallery and rising main chamber in the dam wall, which demonstrate the principal characteristics of the design of such a delivery system.
The grounds of the dam retain numerous tree plantings undertaken from the time of the completion of the dam and Manor in 1910. Collectively the diversity of these trees are an invaluable record of past horticultural practices. Terraces and platforms adjoining the dam abutments demarcate the location of plant used in the construction of the dam, in particular the location of the cableway head tower.
The submerged basin of the reservoir is likely to retain remnant plant and equipment used in the construction of the dam, such as cuttings and terraces of the tramway.
The site of the dam retains a number of known archeological sites which are associated with dam construction and later upgrading of the spillway. These sites include a large curved masonry dam on a tributary of Cataract Creek of the Appin/Bulli Road, a potential stone quarry, the formation of a roadway adjacent to the road of access, powder magazines on Keele Island and on the adjoining west abutment of the dam wall, and fireplaces, horse yard drains and powder magazines on the abutment adjoining the spillway.
The place possesses uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.
Cataract Dam was the first major dam situated within a large water supply catchment area constructed in NSW. Cataract Dam is the oldest large cyclopean masonry dam constructed in Australia, and is believed to have been the largest works of its kind at the time of completion in the Southern Hemisphere.
The straight cyclopean masonry wall is unique within the context of other large cyclopean masonry dams constructed in NSW.
The lower valve house (completed in stages up to 1915) is the earliest and largest structure of its type constructed in NSW. The screen tower (completed in 1907) is the earliest structure of its type constructed in NSW, and includes unique water intake system. The crest house and valve tower retain unique penstock gate and operating gear (capstan, connecting shafts and gate) unique examples of this type of machinery of NSW.
The terraces used in construction of the dam represent the first of their type in NSW and are associated with a number of technological innovations such as the first cableway used in NSW. The plant and equipment used in the construction was electrically driven, which was unique in NSW in regard to the date, extent of the installation and remoteness.
The dam retains items of ironwork which are part of the original water delivery system, which are unique in NSW in regard to this date.
The building of the dam represents a unique episode in the history of NSW in being the subject of a number of Royal Commissions made into the building and cost of the project. The Commissions are likely to have influenced the method of construction of later dams.
The latter stages of the construction of Cataract Dam was completed by the contractors Lane and Peters. Cataract Dam is the only cyclopean masonry dam designed by the Public Works Department but completed under contract.
Cataract Dam is arguably the most decorative of all the major dams constructed in NSW in regards to its high standard of rusticated stone finishes on the crest wall, abutments and crest house, the ashlar pattern imparted by the precast concrete blocks on the straight upstream face of the wall, the unadorned functionality of the concrete facing to the inclined downstream face and lower valve house, and the setting of the high straight wall within the landscape of the Cataract River gorge. The crest house and complementary elements such as the articulated arches on the crest wall, in their innate sense of scale and composition, rank with the best of all public works in NSW undertaken in the Federation era.
The site of the construction township situated within the grounds of the picnic area and maintenance men's cottages was the first large temporary camp established for the construction of a dam in NSW.
The Board's former official quarters and surrounds are unique within the context of dams on NSW and rare within the context of other government institutions of the federation era.
The four stone workmen's cottages constructed in 1912, and the 1929 brick officer-in-charge's residence, consciously sited on the hillside overlooking the dam wall, impart a village-like appearance which is unique within the context of dams in NSW.
The four stone maintenance men cottages are likely to be rare, within the context of a non-urban environment, Federation era example of model working men's houses.
The grounds of the dam contain an early 36 inch (0.9) diameter gate valve (manufacture not known) which was used to regulate the outlet flow of water which is considered the only extant example of such a valve in NSW.
The upgrading works to the spillway and dam between 1981 and 1989 to make the dam meet modern day safety requirements were undertaken in consideration of the unique heritage significance of the dam in NSW ensuring no visual impact on the dam, a milestone in remedial engineering works on this scale.
The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural or natural places/environments in New South Wales.
Cataract Dam is representative of a type of dam (cyclopean masonry gravity dam) constructed in NSW by the Water Supply and Sewerage Branch of the Public Works Department during the first half of the twentieth century. Key representative attributes of the dam's design and construction include the use of cyclopean masonry bedded in sandstone concrete, use of blue metal concrete facing, use of a spillway offset from the gravity wall, valve crest house attractively designed and finished to a high standard.
The upgrading of the valves within the dam wall and ancillary monitoring and operating equipment is representative of the modern day safe operating practice.
The construction technologies used at Cataract Dam came to be the norm for all subsequent dams constructed in NSW well into the twentieth century. Key representative attributes of the dam's construction techniques include the use of cableways, the building of temporary camps to house labourers and tradesman, building of semi permanent cottages to house salaried staff, the construction of terraced platforms to house plant and machinery, mechanisation of concrete production, the use of a purpose built tramway to transport raw materials from their source to the construction site, the construction of a purpose built road of access to transport men, supplies and materials from the nearest railhead to the construction site, the building of permanent infrastructure such as water supply for plant and residences, the use of electricity to power plant and equipment.
The rehabilitation of tracts of land scarred in the construction process employed at Cataract Dam through beautification works, is representative of practices undertaken at other dams throughout NSW. Key representative attributes of this practice include utilising the former camp as a picnic area, utilising the former terraced construction platforms as picnic areas and lookouts, and utilising the former construction roads for vehicular access to the dam site and wall.
The practice of ongoing maintenance of the Cataract Dam wall after by resident staff and workshop facilitates is representative of procedures that were undertaken at other dams and weirs constructed prior and after Cataract.
The provision of public amenity at the dam site is representative of the use of large water supply and irrigation dams in NSW as places for recreation by the greater community.
Engineering heritage
The is listed as a National Engineering Landmark by Engineers Australia as part of its Engineering Heritage Recognition Program.
See also
List of reservoirs and dams in New South Wales
Sydney Water
Shoalhaven Scheme
Upper Canal System
References
Bibliography
Attribution
External links
Aboriginal communities in New South Wales
City of Wollongong
Articles incorporating text from the New South Wales State Heritage Register
Concrete-face rock-fill dams
Dams completed in 1907
Dams in New South Wales
Gravity dams
New South Wales State Heritage Register
Reservoirs in New South Wales
Southern Highlands (New South Wales)
Sydney Water
Upper Nepean Scheme
1907 establishments in Australia
Recipients of Engineers Australia engineering heritage markers
Wollondilly Shire
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The French Grand Prix (), formerly known as the Grand Prix de l'ACF (Automobile Club de France), is an auto race held as part of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile's annual Formula One World Championship. It is one of the oldest motor races in the world as well as the first "Grand Prix". It ceased shortly after its centenary in with 86 races having been held, due to unfavourable financial circumstances and venues. The race returned to the Formula One calendar in with Circuit Paul Ricard hosting the race.
Unusually even for a race of such longevity, the location of the Grand Prix has moved frequently with 16 different venues having been used over its life, a number only eclipsed by the 23 venues used for the Australian Grand Prix since its 1928 start. It is also one of four races (along with the Belgian, Italian and Spanish Grands Prix) to have been held as part of the three distinct Grand Prix championships (the World Manufacturers' Championship in the late 1920s, the European Championship in the 1930s and the Formula One World Championship since 1950).
The Grand Prix de l'ACF was tremendously influential in the early years of Grand Prix racing, leading the establishment of the rules and regulations of racing as well as setting trends in the evolution of racing. The power of the original organiser, the Automobile Club de France, established France as the home of motor racing organisation.
History
Origins
France was one of the first countries to hold motor racing events of any kind. The first competitive motor race, the Paris to Rouen Horseless Carriages Contest was held on 22 July 1894, and was organized by the Automobile Club de France (ACF). The race was 126 km (78 mi) long and was won by Count Jules-Albert de Dion in his De Dion Bouton steam powered car in just under 7 hours. This race was followed by races starting in Paris to various towns and cities around France such as Bordeaux, Marseille, Lyon and Dieppe, and also to various other European cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin, Innsbruck and Vienna. The 1901 Paris-Berlin race was noteworthy as the race winner, Henri Fouriner averaged an astonishing 57 mph (93 km/h) in his Mors, but there were details of other incidents. A competitor driving a 40H.P. Panhard suddenly found the road blocked by a tram in the village of Metternich, and he deliberately ran into the vehicle to avoid the crowd of spectators. The tram was knocked off the rails; the car was hardly damaged. And in Reims, a future location of many French Grands Prix, another competitor in a Mors hit and killed a child who wandered onto the road.
But these races, held on public dirt roads that were not all closed to the public came to a halt in 1903. The Paris-Madrid race, a 1,307 km (812 mi) long competition from the French capital to the Spanish capital held in May of that year had over 300 entrants. Some of the cars were doing 140 km/h (87 mph)- an astonishingly fast speed for the time- not even rail locomotives were capable of hitting these speeds. It was not known at the time how safe these races would be or how these cars- made mostly of wood would perform, and development of the car had improved significantly over 9 years. The race was a disaster, with 8 people killed and over 15 injured in multiple accidents- and all this happened before any of the competitors reached the Spanish border. Crowds of onlookers would stand right on the edge of the track, and children were wandering into the roads which became very dusty and visibility was limited at best. The most notable fatality of this race was one Marcel Renault, one of the 3 brothers who founded Renault. When Renault reached the village of Payré just south of Grand Poitiers he lost control of his 16HP Renault in poor visibility caused by excess dust. The car went into a gutter and crashed into a tree, and Renault sustained a horrific wound in the side of his head and dislocated his shoulder. Fellow competitor Leon Théry stopped his Decauville in order to help Renault and his riding-mechanic Vauthier, still trapped in their car. No doctors were on hand, but Théry found one at the next village and sent him to the place of accident- the doctor rode a bicycle to get to the accident. The doctor conveyed Renault back to the nearest hospital in Grand Poitiers, where Renault succumbed to his injuries two days later, while Vauthier survived with minor injuries. Accidents continued throughout the day; cars hit trees and disintegrated, they overturned and caught fire, axles broke and inexperienced drivers crashed on the rough roads. The race was eventually called off by the French government and there was no declared winner. The cars were impounded by the French authorities, towed to the nearest rail stations by horses and transported back to Paris by train. The race created a political uproar in France, and a French magazine did their own investigation into the race. Speed, dust created by the cars, poor organization and lack of crowd control were to blame for these tragedies and even French Prime Minister Émile Combes was held partially responsible because he was the ultimate authority on allowing the race to proceed.
Other races were organized by American newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett called the Gordon Bennett Cup, 4 of which were in France. 3 city-to-city races in 1900, 1901 and 1902, all starting in Paris were organized by Bennett and they attracted top racers from the United States and Western Europe. But after the 1903 Paris-Madrid race, the French government banned point-to-point car races on open public roads, so Bennett moved the 1903 race to Ireland on a closed circuit 2 months after Paris-Madrid, the first of its kind. This race was won by Belgian Camille Jenatzy in a Mercedes, who was one of the bravest and most fearless racing drivers of his time. The 1904 race was held in western Germany while the last Gordon Bennett Cup race was held in an 137 km (85 mi) circuit in Auvergne in south-central France. The race started in Clermont-Ferrand, and was run over 4 laps, and was won by Théry in a Brasier.
The world's oldest Grand Prix
Closed public road courses
The French Grand Prix, open to international competition was first run on 26 June 1906 under the auspices of the Automobile Club de France in Sarthe with a starting field of 32 automobiles. The Grand Prix name ("Great Prize") referred to the prize of 45,000 French francs to the race winner. The franc was pegged to the gold at 0.290 grams per franc, which meant that the prize was worth 13kg of gold, or €191,000 adjusted for inflation. The earliest French Grands Prix were held on circuits consisting of public roads near towns through northern and central France, and they usually were held at different towns each year, such as Le Mans, Dieppe, Amiens, Lyon, Strasbourg, and Tours. Dieppe in particular was an extremely dangerous circuit – 9 people (5 drivers, 2 riding mechanics, and 2 spectators) in total were killed at the three French Grands Prix held at the 79km (49-mile) circuit.
The 1906 race was the first ever race named "Grand Prix"; other, later, international events in the 1900s and 1910s in Europe and the United States had their own names with the term "Prize" in them, such as Grand Prize in America or Kaiserpreis (English: Emperor's Prize) in Germany. The French Grand Prix race was run on a very fast 66-mile (106km) one-off anti-clockwise closed public road circuit east of the small western French city of Le Mans, starting in the village of Saint-Mars-la-Briere. It then went down the Route D323 and turned a hard left onto Route D357 near the commune of Yvre-l-Eveque onto a 4-mile straight towards the village of La Butte, then down a 15-mile straight through Bouloire and then into a twisty section in Saint-Calais. The circuit then went north on Route D1 through Berfay and then entered a twisty section in a forest before Vibraye and then went north again, entering a series of fast corners in and near Lamnay, and then turned west at La Ferte-Bernard. The circuit then went down Route D323 again and down multiple straights 3 to 6 miles long with a few fast corners at Sceaux-sur-Huisne and Conerre, before returning to the pits at Saint-Mars-la-Briere. Circuits in Europe that went through multiple rural towns like this one became ever more common on public road circuits in France and other European countries. Long straights also became a staple of circuits in France, particularly at future iterations of the relocated Sarthe circuit at Le Mans- a city that would host another race that would become a fixed staple in motor racing circles. The Hungarian Ferenc Szisz won this very long 12hour race on a Renault from Italian Felice Nazzaro in a Fiat, where laps on this circuit took just under an hour and the horse carriage road surface was made of dirt; even so this did not stop the fastest lap average speed at being 73.37 mph (118.09 km/h)- an astonishingly fast speed for the time. The 1908 race saw Mercedes humiliating the French organizers and finishing 1-2-3 at the lethal circuit at Dieppe, where no less than 4 people were killed during the weekend. The 1913 race was won by Georges Boillot on a one-off 19-mile (31km) circuit near Amiens in northern France. Amiens was another deadly circuit – it had a 7.1 mile straight and 5 people were killed during its use during pre-race testing and the race weekend itself.
The 1914 race, run on a popular 23mile circuit near Lyon is perhaps the most legendary and dramatic Grand Prix of the preWWI racing era. This circuit, which was popular with drivers and spectators had a twisty and demanding section down to the town of Le Madeline and then an 8.3 mile straight interrupted by a hairpin which returned to the pits. This race was a hard-fought battle between the French Peugeots and the German Mercedes. Although the Peugeots were fast and Boillot ended up leading for 12 of the 20 laps after Max Sailer in a Mercedes unexpectedly dropped out with engine failure on Lap 6, the Dunlop tyres they used wore out badly compared to the Continentials that the Mercedes cars were using. Boillot's four-minute lead was wiped out by Christian Lautenschlager in a Mercedes while Boillot stopped an incredible eight times for tyres. Although Boillot drove very hard to try to catch Lautenschlager, he had to retire on the last lap due to engine failure, and for the second time in 6 years Mercedes finished 1–2–3; a humiliating result for the organizers and Peugeot.
Thanks to World War I and the amount of damage it did to France, the Grand Prix was not brought back until 1921, and that race was won by American Jimmy Murphy with a Duesenberg at the Sarthe circuit at Le Mans, which was the now legendary circuit's first year of operation. Bugatti made its debut at the 1922 race at an 8.3mile (13km) off-public road circuit near Strasbourg near the French-German border – which was very close to Bugatti's headquarters in Molsheim. It rained, and the muddy circuit was in a dreadful condition. This race became a duel between Bugatti and Fiat – and Felice Nazzaro won in a Fiat, although his nephew and fellow competitor Biagio Nazzaro was killed after the axle on his Fiat broke, threw a wheel and hit a tree; the 32-year old and his riding mechanic both suffered fatal head injuries. The 1923 race at another one-off circuit near Tours featured another new Bugatti – the Type 32. This car was insultingly dubbed the "Tank", owing to its streamlined shape and very short wheelbase. This car was fast on the straights of this high-speed public road circuit – but it handled badly and was outpaced by Briton Henry Segrave in a supercharged Sunbeam, supercharging being a common feature of Grand Prix cars during this period. Segrave won the race, and the Sunbeam would be the last British car to win an official Grand Prix until Stirling Moss's victory with a Vanwall at the 1957 British Grand Prix. Segrave, a known teetotaler was given a glass of champagne after his victory, because apparently there wasn't any water available in the pits area. The 1924 race was held again at Lyon, but this time on a shortened 14mile variant of the circuit used in 1914. Two of the most successful Grand Prix cars of all time, the Bugatti Type 35 and the Alfa Romeo P2 both made their debuts at this race. The Bugattis, with their advanced alloy wheels suffered tyre failure, and Italian Giuseppe Campari won in his Alfa P2.
France's first permanent circuit and other public road circuits
In 1925, the first permanent autodrome in France was built, it was called Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry, located 20 miles south of the centre of Paris. The 7.7mile (12.3km) circuit included a 51degree concrete banking, an asphalt road course and then-modern facilities, including pit garages and grandstands. Purpose-built autodromes like Montlhéry were often built near the country's largest cities (with the exception of Indianapolis and the Nürburgring). After the construction of Brooklands near London in England in 1907, and Indianapolis in the United States in 1908 and after World War I, Monza near Milan in Italy was opened in 1922, and Stiges–Terramar near Barcelona in Spain was also opened in 1923. The French were then prompted to construct a purpose-built racing circuit at Montlhéry in the north and then Miramas in the south. The Nürburgring in western Germany followed in 1927, to complement eastern Germany's AVUS street circuit. Montlhery first held the Grand Prix de l'ACF in 1925 as part of the inaugural World Manufacturers' Championship, the first time Grands Prix were grouped together to form a championship. The circuit drew huge crowds and they were witnesses to the spectacular sight of fast cars racing on Montlhéry's steep banking and asphalt road course, which had many fast corners and long straights, and was located in a forest. The first race at Montlhéry was marred by the fatal accident of Antonio Ascari in an Alfa P2, when he crashed at a very fast left-hand kink returning to the oval portion. Miramas, a high-banked concrete oval track like Brooklands and part of Montlhéry was completed in 1926, and it played host to the Grand Prix that year. This race saw only three cars compete, all Bugattis, and was won by Frenchman Jules Goux, who had also won the Indianapolis 500 in 1913.
The 1927 race at Montlhéry was won by Frenchman Robert Benoist in a Delage. 1929 saw a brief return to Le Mans, which was won by William Grover-Williams in a Bugatti; this was the man who had won the first ever Monaco Grand Prix earlier in the year; Grover-Williams had also won the 1928 race in a Bugatti at the 17-mile (28 km) Saint-Gaudens circuit in the south, not far from Toulouse. The 1930 French Grand Prix, held at Pau back down in the south was one of the more memorable French Grands Prix of the pre-World War II period. This race, held in September on a one-off triangular 9.8mile (15.8-km) public road circuit just a few kilometres away from the current Pau Grand Prix track saw a special supercharged version of the famous Bentley 4½ Litre called the Blower Bentley compete in the race with Briton and "Bentley Boy" Tim Birkin driving. The Bentley team had been dominating the famed 24 Hours of Le Mans, and this Blower Bentley had its headlights and mudguards removed, as these were not needed for this race, giving it the appearance of an open-wheel car. The Bentley, which was much larger and heavier than the small Bugattis around it performed well – at this very fast circuit which was made up of very long straights and tight hairpins actually suited the powerful Blower Bentley, and it enabled Birkin to pass the pits at 130 mph (208 km/h) (very fast for that time), and he overtook car after car – to the amazement of the crowd. But he finished second to Frenchman Philippe Étancelin in a Bugatti.
Montlhéry would also be part of the second Grand Prix championship era; the European Championship when it began in 1931. Other public road circuits also played host to French Grand Prix, such as the fast, straight and slow corner-dominated 4.8mile Reims-Gueux circuit in the Champagne wine region of Northern France 144km (90mi) east of Paris for 1932, where Italian legend Tazio Nuvolari won in an Alfa Romeo. But from 1933 to 1937 Montlhéry would become the sole host of the event. The 1934 French Grand Prix marked the return of Mercedes-Benz to Grand Prix racing after 20 years, with an all-new car, team, management, and drivers, headed by Alfred Neubauer. 1934 was the year where the German Silver Arrows debuted (an effort heavily funded by Hitler's Third Reich), with Auto Union having already debuted its powerful mid-engined Type–A car for a race at AVUS in Germany. Although the Monégasque driver Louis Chiron won in an Alfa, the Silver Arrows dominated the race. The high-tech German cars seemed to float over the rough concrete banking at Montlhéry where all the other cars seemed to be visibly affected by the concrete surface. Makeshift chicanes were placed at certain points on the high-speed circuit in an effort by the French to slow the very fast German cars down for the 1935 race, but this effort came to nothing as Mercedes superstar Rudolf Caracciola won that year's race.
Reims, Rouen and Charade
The French Grand Prix returned to the Reims-Gueux circuit for 1938 and 1939, where the Silver Arrows continued their domination of Grand Prix racing. The Reims-Gueux circuit had its straights widened and facilities updated for the 1938 race. It was around this time that the French Grand Prix had some of its prestige transferred after 2 years of being a sportscar race- the Monaco Grand Prix had gained a huge amount of prestige and would become the premier French-related Grand Prix event, taking place in a tiny principality surrounded by France; but the French Grand Prix was still an important race now held traditionally on the first weekend of July. But when World War II began, the French Grand Prix did not come back until 1947, where it was held at the one-time Parilly circuit near Lyon, a race that was marred by an accident involving Pierre Levegh crashing into and killing 3 spectators. After that, Grand Prix racing returned to Reims-Gueux, where another manufacturer – Alfa Romeo – would dominate the event for 4 years. 1950 was the first year of the Formula One World Championship, but all the Formula One-regulated races were held in Europe. The race was won by Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio, who also won the next year's race – the longest Formula One race ever held in terms of distance covered, totalling 373 miles.
The prestigious French event was held for the first time at the Rouen-Les-Essarts circuit in 1952, where it would be held four more times over the next 16 years. Rouen was a very high speed circuit located in the northern part of the country, that was made up mostly of high speed bends. But the race returned to Reims in 1953, where the triangular circuit, which was originally made up of three long straights (with a few slight kinks) two tight 90 degree right hand corners and a very slow right hand hairpin had been modified to bypass the town of Gueux, making it slightly faster. Reims now had two straights (including the even longer back straight), three very fast bends and two very slow and tight hairpins. This race was a classic, with Fangio in a Maserati and Briton Mike Hawthorn in a Ferrari having a race-long battle for the lead, with Hawthorn taking the checkered flag. 1954 was another special event, and this marked Mercedes's return to top-flight road racing led by Alfred Neubauer, 20 years after their first return to Grand Prix racing – in France. After two wins for the works Maserati team that year at Buenos Aires and Spa, Fangio was now driving for Mercedes and he and teammate Karl Kling effectively dominated the race from start to finish with their advanced W196's. It was not a popular win – Mercedes, a German car manufacturer, had won on French soil – only 9 years after the German occupation of France had ended. The French Grand Prix was cancelled in 1955 because of the Le Mans disaster, and Mercedes withdrew from all racing at the end of that year. The race continued to be held at Reims in 1956, another spell at a lengthened Rouen-Les-Essarts in 1957 and back to Reims again from 1958 to 1961, 1963 and one last event in 1966 at this circuit, located where champagne is made. The 1956 race saw a one-off appearance by Bugatti- they entered a new mid-engined Grand Prix car (which was a novelty at the time, and only the second Grand Prix car ever to be designed this way after the 1930s Auto Unions) designed by renowned Italian engineer Colombo and driven by Maurice Trintignant, but the car was underpowered, overweight, and over-complicated, and it proved to be very difficult to drive; it retired early in the race. The 1958 race was marred by the fatal accident of Italian Luigi Musso, driving a works Ferrari, and it was also Fangio's last Formula One race. Hawthorn, who like many other F1 drivers at the time, held Fangio in very high regard; and was about to lap Fangio (driving in an outdated Maserati) on the last lap on the pit straight when he slowed down and let Fangio cross the line before him so the respected Argentine driver could complete the whole race distance. Hawthorn won, and Fangio finished fourth. 1961 saw the race being held in weather, and the track broke up at the hairpins. The race came down to a slipstreaming battle between American Dan Gurney in a Porsche and Italian Giancarlo Baghetti in the sharknose Ferrari. Baghetti won the race- which astonishingly was his first ever championship Grand Prix by less than a car's length from Gurney.
Rouen-Les-Essarts hosted the event in 1962 and 1964, and Gurney won both these events, one in a Porsche and another in a Brabham. In 1965 the race was held at the 5.1 mile Charade Circuit in the hills surrounding Michelin's hometown of Clermont-Ferrand in central France. Unlike the long straights that made up Reims and the fast curves that made up Rouen, Charade was known as a mini-Nürburgring and was twisty, undulating and very demanding. The short Bugatti Circuit at Le Mans held the race in 1967, but the circuit was not liked by the Formula One circus, and it never returned. Rouen-Les-Essarts hosted the event in 1968, and it was a disastrous event; Frenchman Jo Schlesser crashed and was killed at the very fast Six Frères corner in his burning Honda, and Formula One did not return to the public-road circuit. Charade hosted two more events, and then Formula One moved to the newly built, modern Circuit Paul Ricard on the French riviera for 1971. Paul Ricard Circuit, located in Le Castellet, just outside Marseille and not far from Monaco, was a new type of modern facility, much like Montlhéry had been in the 1920s. It had run-off areas, a wide track and ample viewing areas for spectators. Charade hosted the event one last time in 1972; Formula One cars had become too fast for public road circuits; the circuit was littered with rocks and Austrian Helmut Marko was hit in the eye by a rock thrown up from Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi's Lotus which ended his racing career.
Le Castellet and Dijon-Prenois
Formula One returned to Paul Ricard in 1973; the French Grand Prix was never run on public road circuits like Reims, Rouen and Charade ever again. Paul Ricard circuit also had a driving school, the École de Pilotage Winfield, run by the Knight brothers and Simon Delatour, that honed the talents of people such as France's first (and so far only) Formula One World Champion Alain Prost, and Grand Prix winners Didier Pironi and Jacques Laffite. The event was run at the new fast, up-and-down Prenois circuit near Dijon in 1974, before returning to Ricard in 1975 and 1976. The race was originally scheduled to be run at Clermont-Ferrand for 1974 and 1975, but the circuit was deemed too dangerous for Formula One. The two venues alternated the venue until 1984, with Ricard getting the race in even-numbered years and Dijon in odd-numbered years (except 1983). 1977 saw a new part of the Dijon circuit built called the "Parabolique". This was done to increase lap times which had been very nearly below a minute in 1974, and the race featured a battle between American Mario Andretti and Briton John Watson; Andretti came out on top to win. Lotus teammates Andretti and Swede Ronnie Peterson dominated the race in 1978 with their dominant 79s, a car that dominated the field in a way not seen since the dominating Alfa Romeo and domineering Ferrari in the early 1950s. The 1979 race was another classic, with the famous end-of-race duel for second place between Frenchman René Arnoux in a 1.5-liter turbocharged V6 Renault and Canadian Gilles Villeneuve in a 3-liter Flat-12 Ferrari. It is considered to be one of the all-time great duels in motorsports, with Arnoux and Villeneuve banging wheels and cars around the fast Dijon circuit before Villeneuve came out on top. The race was won by Arnoux's French teammate Jean-Pierre Jabouille, which was the first race ever won by a Formula One car with a turbo-charged engine. 1980 saw rookie Prost qualify his slower McLaren seventh and Australian Alan Jones beat French Ligier drivers Laffite and Pironi on their home soil, and the 1981 race was the first of 51 victories by future 4-time world champion Prost; driving a Renault, the famed French marque won the next three French Grands Prix. The 1982 event at Ricard was a memorable one for France – it was a turbo-charged engine/French walkover and 4 French drivers finished in the top 4 positions – each of them driving a car with a turbo-charged engine. Renault driver René Arnoux won from his teammate Prost and Ferrari drivers Pironi and Patrick Tambay finished 3rd and 4th. But this French triumph was internally sour: Arnoux violated an agreement that if he was in front of Prost, he would let him by because Prost was better placed in the championship. Much to the chagrin of Prost and the French Renault team's management Arnoux did not do this, despite the management holding out pit boards ordering him to let Prost past. Prost won the next year at the same place, beating out Nelson Piquet in a Brabham with a turbocharged BMW engine; Piquet had led the previous year's race but retired with engine failure.
Dijon was last used in 1984, and by then turbo-charged engines were almost ubiquitous, save the Tyrrell team who were still using the Cosworth V8 engine. The international motorsports governing body at the time, FISA, had instituted a policy of long-term contracts with only one circuit per Grand Prix. The choice was between Dijon and Ricard – the small Prenois circuit had cars lapping in the 1 minute 1 second range, and Ricard was the main testing facility for Formula One at the time. So it was Ricard that was chosen, and it hosted the race from 1985 to 1990. From 1986 onwards Formula One used a shortened version of the circuit, after Elio de Angelis's fatal crash at the fast Verriere bends. De Angelis was not injured by the crash, however his car caught fire and there were no marshals to help him as it was a test session, and he died of smoke inhalation in hospital the next day. These two fast corners and the whole top section of the circuit was not used for the last five races. Prost won the final three races there, the 1988 one being a particularly dramatic win; he overtook his teammate Ayrton Senna at the Curbe de Signes at the end of the ultra fast Mistral Straight and held onto the lead all the way to the finish, and the 1990 (by which time turbo-charged engines had been banned) event was led for more than 60 laps by Italian Ivan Capelli and Brazilian Maurício Gugelmin in underfunded, Adrian Newey designed Leyton-House cars – two cars that had failed to qualify at the previous event in Mexico. Prost, now driving for Ferrari after driving for McLaren from 1984 to 1989, made a late-race charge and passed Capelli to take the victory; Gugelmin had retired earlier.
Magny-Cours
In 1991, the race moved to the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours, where it stayed for another 17 years. Magny-Cours was the seventh venue to host the French Grand Prix as a part of the Formula One World Championship, and the sixteenth in total. The move to Magny-Cours was an attempt to stimulate the economy of the area, but many within Formula One complained about the remote nature of the circuit. Highlights of Magny-Cours's time hosting the French Grand Prix include Prost's final of six wins on home soil in 1993, and Michael Schumacher's securing of the 2002 championship after only 11 races. The 2004 and 2005 races were in doubt because of financial problems and the addition of new circuits to the Formula One calendar. These races went ahead as planned, but it still had an uncertain future.
In 2007 it was announced by the FFSA, the race promoter, that the 2008 French Grand Prix was put on an indefinite "pause". This suspension was due to the financial situation of the circuit, known to be disliked by many in F1 due to the circuit's location. Then Bernie Ecclestone confirmed (at the time) that the 2007 French Grand Prix would be the last to be held at Magny-Cours. This turned out not to be true, because funding for the 2008 race was found, and this race at Magny-Cours was the last French Grand Prix for 10 years.
Absence
After various negotiations, the future of the race at Magny-Cours took another turn, with increased speculation that the 2008 French Grand Prix would return, with Ecclestone himself stating "We're going to maybe resurrect it for a year, or something like that". On 24 July, Ecclestone and the French Prime Minister met and agreed to possibly maintain the race at Magny Cours for 2008 and 2009. The change in fortune was completed on July, when the FIA published the calendar with a 2008 French Grand Prix scheduled at Magny-Cours once again. The 2009 race, however, was again cancelled on 15 October 2008, with the official website citing "economic reasons". A huge makeover of Magny-Cours ("2.0") was planned, but cancelled in the end. The race's promoter FFSA then started looking for an alternative host. There were five different proposals for a new circuit: in Rouen with 3 possible layouts (a street circuit, in the dock area, or a permanent circuit near the airport), a street circuit located near Disneyland Resort Paris, Versailles, and in Sarcelles (Val de France), but all were cancelled. A final location in Flins-Les Mureaux, near the Flins Renault Factory was being considered however that was cancelled as well on 1 December 2009. In 2010 and 2011, there was no French Grand Prix on the Formula 1 calendar, although the Circuit Paul Ricard candidated itself for 2012.
10 French drivers have won the French Grand Prix; 7 before World War I and II and 3 during the Formula One championship. French driver Alain Prost won the race six times at three different circuits; however German driver Michael Schumacher has won eight times – the most anybody has ever won any Grand Prix. Monégasque driver Louis Chiron won it five times, and the Argentine driver Juan Manuel Fangio and British driver Nigel Mansell both won four times.
Return to Le Castellet
In December 2016, it was confirmed that the French Grand Prix would return in 2018 at the Circuit Paul Ricard and it currently holds a contract to host the French Grand Prix until at least 2022.
In an announcement to the nation on 13 April 2020, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said that restrictions on public events as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic would continue until mid-July, putting the 2020 French Grand Prix, scheduled for 28 June, at risk of postponement. The race was later cancelled with no intention to reschedule for the 2020 championship. The race returned for the 2021 season.
Winners of the French Grand Prix
Repeat winners (drivers)
Drivers in bold are competing in the Formula One championship in the current season.
A pink background indicates an event which was not part of the Formula One World Championship.
A yellow background indicates an event which was part of the pre-war European Championship.
A green background indicates an event which was part of the pre-war World Manufacturers' Championship.
Louis Chiron won the 1931 race, but shared the win with Achille Varzi.
Juan Manuel Fangio won the 1951 race, but shared the win with Luigi Fagioli.
Repeat winners (constructors)
Teams in bold are competing in the Formula One championship in the current season.
A pink background indicates an event which was not part of the Formula One World Championship.
A yellow background indicates an event which was part of the pre-war European Championship.
A green background indicates an event which was parto of the pre-war World Manufacturers' Championship.
Repeat winners (engine manufacturers)
Manufacturers in bold are competing in the Formula One championship in the current season.
A pink background indicates an event which was not part of the Formula One World Championship.
A yellow background indicates an event which was part of the pre-war European Championship.
A green background indicates an event which was part of the pre-war World Manufacturers' Championship.
* Built by Cosworth, funded by Ford.** Built by Ilmor in 2000, funded by Mercedes.
By year
A pink background indicates an event which was not part of the Formula One World Championship.
A yellow background indicates an event which was part of the pre-war European Championship.
A green background indicates an event which was part of the pre-war World Manufacturers' Championship.
Races sometimes considered to be French Grand Prix
Beginning in the early 1920s, French media represented eight races held in France before 1906 as being Grands Prix de l'Automobile Club de France, leading to the first French Grand Prix being known as the ninth Grand Prix de l'ACF. This was done to give the Grand Prix the appearance of being the world's oldest motor race. The winners of these races, along with their original titles, are listed here.
References
External links
French Grand Prix Results, Live Timing, Quiz & Discussion
Site officiel du Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours
Official Website of the French Grand Prix
Pre-World Championship Grands Prix
Formula One Grands Prix
National Grands Prix
Recurring sporting events established in 1906
1906 establishments in France
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